


Trespassing the Laws of Time

by Discordance



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Gen, Hokage!Kakashi, Side Obito/Rin, Team Minato-centric, Time Travel equals Caution, multi-chaptered
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-12-14 04:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11775249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Discordance/pseuds/Discordance
Summary: In which an anxious Team Minato find themselves in a very different-looking Konoha, and the Sixth Hokage is just trying to move past his regrets...until his 10-year-old self appears in his head.





	1. Ino

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights go to Masashi Kishimoto.
> 
> Last Edit: 2/12/2018

  

"Sensei…this doesn't look like Konoha…"

The Yellow Flash said nothing, looking around with narrowed eyes at their foreign surroundings.

They stood under the shade of a large tree, its roots digging beneath the dirt underneath the soles of their feet. To help protect it from damage, a short wooden platform was erected in a circular formation around the large plant. Hedges and wooden benches bordered the area, trees towering over them in an array of healthy green.

Each of the four sides of the area had a different purpose. To their right, past the hedges, was a fence overlooking an array of houses. To the other side and behind them was a stone wall, firm wooden stairs rising to connect to the bustling streets above. Ahead of them, to the corner of the pit nearest to the stairs, buildings enclosed together to create a full line of stores, not unlike what he could see above them.

But even if he and his team has suddenly found themselves in an unknown place, even if there was every reason to be paranoid or uneasy, his mind was observing the opposite.

The children playing at the corner nearby were clumsy, shrill laughter bubbling up their throats and giving a red glow to their chubby cheeks. Several adults sat on the benches nearby, either talking with one another or watching the children with a fond, nostalgic look on their faces.

Minato has been to many villages, and he has always remembered how different they were compared to Konoha.

But this place...

He turned around, Rin gasped, and his eyes widened as he drew the same observation looking at two, not  _three_ , of his students –

"Where's Kakashi?"

Obito whirled around with wide eyes, obviously not noticing that his teammate on less than friendly terms was gone. Rin's face was starting to become pinched with worry. "Kakashi? Kakashi!" she called out, hands surrounding her lips.

No matter where Minato looked, he could not see nor sense his student's presence. Seeing that the civilians had not yet noticed their presence, his hands flashed into a jutsu, and the familiar pulse of chakra settling over him like a mirage had him relax minutely. His students jerked, before immediately following his example, puffs of smoke as they transformed into nondescript civilians.

Being well-known, it was obvious that he had to disguise himself to prevent from any potential enemies recognizing him. His students were less of a precaution, but they too understood the importance of stealth. While they were just mere Genin, the clan markings or the distinguishable symbols of their clan on their clothing could potentially give away who they were loyal to.

And they still had no idea where they had found themselves in. They could potentially disperse their henge once they discover if this town was just part of the Land of Fire, but at the moment, they knew they should not risk anything until they were sure they were safe.

All they knew was that one of their teammates were missing in this foreign place. And they needed to find him as they figure out how they got here and how they could get back.

And he had a feeling it had to do with the scroll that was metaphorically burning a hole in his pocket.

"Don't draw any attention to yourself. Stay relaxed, and stay alert," Minato ordered his remaining students. They nodded under their disguise, thankfully understanding the seriousness of the situation. "Tell me if there is anyone suspicious looking at you and keep an eye out for Kakashi."

Minato-sensei started walking in the direction of the street ahead, Rin following close behind. Obito moved too, but he nearly tripped when a strong tug on his pants almost unbalanced him.

A small boy looked up at him with wide eyes. "Onee-san...How you do that?"

"Do what?" Obito uneasily looked from the boy to his team, who were getting further and further away.

"How Onee-san just go..."p-hhh' - " the boy's lips puckered and exploded outward, mimicking the plume of smoke, "and O-Onee-san was here?"

"I'm a ninja, I just changed what I look like, now go…" He tried to push the child away, hyper-aware of the gazes boring into his back,  _daring_ him to harm the child in his efforts. A bead of sweat trailed down his forehead.

"No!" the boy burst out, chubby fingers bearing surprising strength in its grip. "Onee-san appeart! I wanna know how to do that!"

"Y-you'll learn when you get older!"

The rest of his team came back and thankfully Minato-sensei helped guide the boy back to his playmates. 

Rin was watching him with a small smile as he muttered to himself, "Just appeared, he says. I was there the whole time. It's not my fault he needs to get his eyes checked."

Once Minato-sensei came back, they left the area. As they walked down the street, he made eye-contact with a shopkeeper who smiled at him and waved. Obito instantly looked away and drew closer to Minato-sensei.

The situation they were in was…scarily strange, to be honest. It only took a span of one second for them to go from the Training Ground to here. There wasn't even a white light or anything. He looked at Minato-sensei, who was disguised as a nondescript man with messy brown hair and black eyes.

If he remembered correctly, the last thing he did before they arrived here was crashing into Minato-sensei (who, he realized with a hint of envy, hadn't even budged an inch). And then right after, he had heard a crack and once he regained his balance and looked up, they were already here.

Wherever here was. But what was really beginning to irk him was the fact that everyone seemed so  _happy_ and  _friendly._ There were a lot of people at home on the streets who were just like that, but it was disorienting to connect the similarities.

He just hoped they were still on friendly soil, because keeping up a henge for hours on end wasn't really his specialty.

Obito nearly shot straight into the air when he felt a small hand grasp onto his. And then when he turned to his side and realized that it was  _Rin_ who had done it, smoke nearly came out of his ears. He struggled fiercely against himself, but was unable to stop his flinch when she neared his ear and whispered, "It'll be less suspicious if they think we're just walking together."

He whimpered – no, he nodded, savoring the feeling of her hand in his as she swung their hands between them to keep up their appearance. It's been a year or so since Rin had stopped always doing this. She used to do it all the time as kids, but as they grew older, naturally physical contact became less of a constant, and before he knew it, his reactions were de-conditioned and he started flinching whenever he didn't see it coming.

"Sensei!" Rin whispered.

Their disguised sensei had ducked into a restaurant, which, upon following right after him, they discovered was not that crowded. Minato-sensei chose a booth near the back with privacy curtains. They all settled in and Rin released his hand. Obito couldn't tell if he was disappointed or strangely relieved.

They waited until a waitress came. Obito watched as Minato-sensei ordered politely, but the moment the waitress left, his stony 'thinking face' slammed back into place. Obito shivered. It was times like these that he would remember that their sensei was one of the top Jonin in Konoha. It was slightly awkward as he and Rin fiddled in the silence that followed, sneaking peeks at the animated tables throughout the restaurant while their sensei sat, a thousand thoughts probably running through his brain every second.

It was only when their food came and they were finally able to draw the curtains without suspicion that they faintly relaxed. Minato-sensei pushed aside their food (Obito eyed them forlornly and Rin kicked him on the leg gently), and took out something from his pocket that Obito recognized as a scroll.

A weird scroll with a lot of markings on it and – with a growing sense of dread in his stomach – a deep tear from the top of the scroll to the near middle. It looked like it had broken through a few layers and a few imprints looked smudged.

"Sensei…what is that?" Rin said hesitantly.

"Sandaime-sama gave it to me before we came to the Training Grounds," Minato explained, a calculative look on his face. "It was a scroll he couldn't read because it has a few seals on it. He asked me to pass through them and decipher the scroll, but even I have been having trouble figuring it out." He carefully smoothed a finger over the tear.

Something clicked in Obito's mind. He inhaled sharply, causing them both to look at him in surprise. "Minato-sensei, is that…was that—was that what made that sound?" Rin looked confused, but Minato-sensei's expression turned into understanding. "Did  _I_ do that?"

"It wasn't your fault, Obito," Minato-sensei said patiently, no doubt knowing that guilt was beginning to gnaw at his heart at the realization. "I should have put it at a safer place, but I was too distracted."

"You mean when Obito…" Rin wondered out loud, blinking.

"Yes Rin, that was when this scroll got damaged. And I have a feeling that  _this_ is the reason why we have found ourselves here right now." His expression became serious. "I need time in order to figure this out. But we also need to find Kakashi."

He looked at them both in the eye. "Did any of you see anything strange when we got here? Who was nearest to him?"

"I – I was," Rin said. Obito felt a faint tendril of jealousy, knowing why she would be. "He was right by me, Sensei, but when we came here he was gone. Like he just disappeared the moment I blinked."

Their sensei digested the small amount of information, and nodded his head. "Right now, our top priority is to find out exactly where we are and where Kakashi is. I'm certain he knows what to do to stay hidden, but if he has been put into enemy hands, this will get much more dangerous." He leaned back against the comfortable backrest of the booth. "We have to pick a rendezvous point – a hotel, more likely - and once we find one, we'll split up. It'll be less suspicious that way. If they are our enemies, they will least expect children to be sent undercover. Gather as much information as you can, but always be careful who you talk to and keep an eye on each other's backs. You can't afford to get separated."

The two young Genin both nodded.

"Once the sun has almost completely set, we'll meet back at the hotel. Do you understand, Obito, Rin?

"Yes sir!"

Their stomachs were relatively full after they left the restaurant half an hour later, having eaten what Minato-sensei had ordered for them previously. The small flame of embarrassment he felt when Minato-sensei had passed him a plate with a knowing and slightly amused smile had all but disappeared.

Rin told her remaining team of a building she had sighted on the way to the restaurant, and they walked a quarter of the way back the way they came until they came across the said establishment. The hotel was small, but it was at a good price and the owner was friendly, greeting them with a warm welcome and escorted them to their room. Their temporary refuge had all the necessities they needed, complete with several futons and a bathroom. The owner told them that breakfast would be available downstairs for free, if they so chose to. Team 7, minus one member, thanked her kindly. Minato-sensei set up a few seals around their temporary hide-out and they all headed out once again.

"We should probably look if there are any ninja around," Rin suggested as they walked together on the streets. Minato-sensei was nowhere to be found, as he departed as soon as they left the hotel to do whatever a Jonin leader does in an unknown yet non-hostile environment (at least for the moment).

He felt excited and adventurous as he took in the lively and cheerful atmosphere of the village or town. Although they were without their main pillar of strength, it eased his mind that Minato-sensei obviously thought that they could take care of themselves well enough to let them wander alone. Plus, with the ever-bright Rin by his side, the adventure was that much enjoyable.

Even if...

Even if one of their teammates was missing.

The thought sobered him and a frown began to tug at the corners of his lips.

"Obito! Obito, are you even listening?"

He blinked and looked up at Rin in surprise. "Huh?"

She shook her head, managing to look both fond and annoyed at the same time. "Really, you're always getting distracted. I need another pair of eyes on this, I can't do it alone."

"Uh – yeah, I know Rin, sorry, it's just...I've been thinking..."

His teammate's henged eyes, hazel, glimmered with concern when he trailed off, unwilling to finish the sentence and ruin the mood. "Thinking...?"

"...Never mind." He smiled at her, not quite the grin he wore the majority of the time. Rin looked completely unconvinced and even opened her mouth to say something, but when he turned the puppy-look on her, she wavered.

"O-okay..." With one last worried glance at him, she turned her head, watching the people around them. "At first, I was thinking that we could look to see if there is anyone who is walking around with a hitai-ate. That'll make it easier to see where we are without having to ask random people. It's less suspicious."

"Yeah…" Obito shook his head again, ridding himself of the lingering thoughts. "So, let's go down this way?"

The sun was starting to near the horizon, so at most they had a few hours before they had to get back to the hotel.

Along the way, Obito couldn't help but notice something.

"A lot of the buildings kind of look…new." And that was an understatement. The wooden buildings looked like they were recently constructed, the paint on stone walls just barely chipped and worn, and all the signs were utterly free of any blemishes. "Either they were just built recently, the people here are rich, or this village is just full of perfectionists."

Rin hummed curiously in agreement. She took a peek over her shoulder and stopped. Obito paused too and followed her line of sight.

An animal was pulling a wagon piled with wooden planks. Its owner and possibly a friend were casually walking beside it, talking.

"…You don't see that every day," Obito slowly commented.

"Just what  _is_ this place?" Rin said, continuing to walk after a while. "How could it be so peaceful when there is supposed to be a war going on?"

"It's like they think the war is over or something," Obito agreed. He put his hands behind his head, but his eyes flashed around a bit uncertainly. "I don't think I see any ninjas, Rin."

"It's only been a couple of streets...Let's keep looking."

They continued on, attempting to be discrete as they looked around at the citizens and their surroundings. It set him on edge that there was practically nothing suspicious about the place. If anything, the suspicious people were  _them_.

"Come on, give us something. Anything," Obito muttered. "A shadow in an alley. Someone bargaining for something suspicious." But there was nothing. Every alley was empty and not as bleak-looking and there was only the peaceful sound of bartering and advertising from the stores.

He never thought he would be  _wishing_ that something could look wrong.

A little boy ran across the road ahead of them and tripped, immediately bursting into tears. Rin gasped and hurried to the boy, reaching him at the same time someone with long blonde hair did. Obito arrived a beat later, but when the other person helped the little boy up and consoled him before looking up at the disguised Genin, he froze.

Glossy lips curved in a smile, nodding at them, and then gently guided the little boy back where he needed to be. A long pale fringe covered part of the right side of her face, a small amount compared to the straight layers cascading down to her calves. She stood up to her full height, and looked down at them contemplatively. She smiled again, "Why, hello. I don't think I've seen you kids around before."

The black-haired and hazel-eyed girl beside him, a bit of anxiety lightly tilting her voice up, said, "I-I'm Rin and this is…um," she elbowed him on the side, making him break out of his daze.

"I'm Obito!" he burst out reflexively in a rush of breath, "N-nice to meet you!" He rubbed a hand on the side that was hit, exchanging a pout with Rin, who was looking at him, slightly apologetic.

(They completely missed the twitch and appraising gaze on Obito, disappearing the moment they turned around to be replaced with a smile.)

The young lady - who was probably in her late teens, but had a presence that made him want to back away quietly - said patiently, "Well it's nice to meet you Rin-chan, and," she looked at him, pausing for a slight moment, "Obito-kun."

Rin broke the silence that followed, "…Y-you're very pretty, Miss."

The woman blinked at her, and then laughed. It wasn't a dainty laugh. More like one that hinted towards an overbearing personality. "Thank you, Rin-chan," she said without a hint of bashfulness. She then looked over his teammate casually and grinned, "I have a feeling you'll turn into a fine young woman yourself one day."

Despite the situation they were in, Obito just couldn't resist turning his head to follow what the lady was seeing.

Unfortunately, the lady must have noticed something in his expression, or maybe it was his eyes, because she crowed, "And it looks like your boyfriend here has no trouble agreeing with me."

It took a moment for it to sink in.

Mortified was the only way to describe his reaction. Any thoughts rumbling through his head lost fuel and sputtered out.

Rin lifted her hands, waving them back and forth, "He's not my boyfriend Miss…"

"Ino-san. And I believe that blush begs to differ, Rin-chan~! Just look at him, he's as red as a tomato!"

Obito froze when Rin turned to him briefly with a curious look. All he wanted to do was run away and hide in a hole.

"Ino-san," Rin complained.

Ino waved it off with a manicured hand. "Well don't say I didn't warn you Rin-chan. Even with those horrid goggles, I know he's just going to snatch you up one day."

Rin flushed this time, and Obito became indignant again, his voice fueled with embarrassment, "Hey! These goggles aren't bad! They protect my eyes because they get dry easily!"

Ino pursed her lips, almost like a pout. "Is that so? You should get something for that, Obito-kun. With a face like yours, others can't appreciate it with those goggles covering it up all the time."

Faster than he could react, she pulled the goggles up, one hand holding it up and the other nestled in his hair. She smirked triumphantly. "There, now that's a face."

The hand on his head felt a bit warm, and he quickly shook off the intruding appendages, ignoring the slight sting on his scalp when a few hairs were pulled loose in his haste, backing away from the contact with a scowl.

Ino shrugged her shoulders, and there was a gleam to her eyes when she appraised them. Obito wasn't sure he quite liked it. She sighed nostalgically, "The innocence. One day you'll know what I'm talking about. How old are you, Rin and Obito?"

Rin said hesitantly, still a bit wary from the teasing, "We're both ten."

"I see. And you're both shinobi."

Obito's eyes widened, and he subtly reached for his kunai, seeing Rin do the same out of the corner of his eye. The woman in front of them didn't show any indication that she noticed. Or she just didn't react.

None of them were wearing their headbands with their henge, nor were they wearing anything that hinted towards their affiliation as shinobi. They couldn't risk it. So how did she know?

"Did you encounter any trouble while everyone was away?"

"A-away?" Obito stuttered. Ino was smiling gently, yet there was something tingling in the air that was becoming more and more noticeable.

"Was there any trouble while most of the shinobi were out on the battlefield? I heard there were some skirmishes while you were protecting the village. Well, you and all the mothers and whoever stayed. Was there anything you remember that we need to know?"

They stilled.

"You can trust me to get to whoever need it to. If you haven't already told someone else. For all we know, it could've been lost somewhere among all the recovery preparations. The war has really taken its toll on everyone, and it won't surprise me if their minds were a bit occupied when they came back."

"Ino-san...What war are you talking about?"

Ino-san looked at him strangely. "Excuse me?"

"What he meant was—!" Rin intervened, stepping a bit in front of her teammate. "He can't remember what the war was called. It hasn't been sticking no matter how many times we tell him."

She laughed semi-nervously, ignoring his indignant squawk.

Ino-san smiled, but something was a bit off about her eyes, something that Obito wouldn't have noticed if he hadn't been anxiously looking for her reaction to his slip-up upon realization. He sweated internally, hoping beyond hope that she wouldn't pry.

"Well that can't be helped." Her voice was light. "After all, it's going to be a significant part of shinobi history once it's put in text."

She lifted her index finger, winking at them, and something about her cheery tone made Obito's hair lift at the back of his neck, "Remember this now as I say it, Obito-kun. There have been three great wars before ours. And all of them share a common similarity. Shinobi. World. War."

She leaned down. "And what do you think this one was?"

Dread curled in the pit of Obito's stomach.  _Three great wars_. Before…wherever this was, the Third Shinobi World War was in full motion. And if what this lady was saying – no, this  _shinobi_ ; there was no mistaking the gleam in her eyes…

Their war had ended a long time ago.

Because if there was one thing he knew about the wars in the past, they didn't all occur around the same time. There always was a gap to separate them from one another. And if what she was saying is true, then the war that had happened recently was not  _their_ war.

Rin stopped breathing next to him, frozen just like him.

Three great wars before the recent one. Which means the war that this place had witnessed was the –

"Fourth Shinobi World War…"

He didn't know he had spoken aloud until Ino-san cocked her head at him and nodded. "Are you both alright? You look a bit pale."

The gravity of the situation seemed to cave in. And all Obito was able to do before stuttering out a goodbye was grab Rin by the arm and walk back the way they came, heedless of the calls from behind them.

He…They…They needed to think.

"F-Fourth Shinobi World War…" Rin murmured in shock, her legs walking by motor-memory alone. "We're not in…how could this happen? How is this possible?"

Obito didn't say anything, his mind whirling with the new information.

Something shone ahead of them, catching his eye. Someone in a uniform of familiar-looking green walking past.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. The noise in his ears droned out into a low buzz. The background slowly faded into black.

As the ninja passed by, Obito's head turned, and he saw.

The hitai-ate.

An engraving that looked like the drawing of a leaf with a swirl in the middle of it.

The symbol of Konoha.

 

* * *

 

Minato arrived in their hotel room.

He knew at once that his students were already back, but the moment he stepped inside, he could feel the anxiety and shadows in their eyes.

He sighed, knowing exactly why.

"….We're in the future."

Obito didn't even say it as a question. It seemed that the knowledge still seemed to shock both of his students to the core.

He had felt the same way at first.

But at least to him…it wasn't an entirely foreign concept – the idea of trespassing through the laws of time.

The Hiraishin was a space-time jutsu that he had mastered. If it was possible to teleport to different places in the span of a second, he could not deny the possibility of someone creating the ability to teleport to different time periods.

"Explain," he said simply but gently.

"Back at home, it was the Third Shinobi World War, and it was  _still_ happening. But here, their war just ended less than a year ago…and they said three world wars happened before it," Rin murmured, eyes staring down at the clenched hands on her lap.

"And we know where we are now, too," Obito added. "The hitai-ate…I saw a handful of them and they were mostly all the same. Most of them were from Konoha. Which means we are not only  _in_ Konoha, we're in the  _future_ Konoha."

"And what of there being 'mostly all the same' for the hitai-ates, Obito?"

"There…there were others, too. I saw a more than a few from Cloud, Sand, and…Iwa."

"We also saw someone from Cloud holding hands and talking with people from Konoha," Rin said. And paused. "… _This_ Konoha."

Minato nodded. "Which means that at this moment, it looks like the alliances between at least those Hidden Villages are strong. Whether it is from the Third War or the Fourth War, we don't know. But we have to keep the disguise up for a while whenever we go out. We can't have someone questioning why we look so much like anyone we know in Konoha."

His two students said nothing to that.

"So the scroll…?"

Despite the situation, Minato couldn't help but feel a small flame of pride at Obito's observation. He nodded solemnly. "I needed to make sure of it, which was another reason why I had us separate ways." He looked at them meaningfully. "Parts of the seal read 'Time'."

They immediately knew what he meant.

He had once taught his students the basics of fuinjutsu as a way to explain to them the basis of his main techniques, as well as to potentially peak their interests, in the case that they would choose to pursue a deeper reservoir of knowledge.

They knew just as well as him that a successful seal would only work as long as the general contents were included in the formula itself. And the fact that 'Time' was repeated in various instances throughout, there was no doubt about its implications.

Obito put his head on the table, hiding the torrent of emotions that Minato could still feel coming from his student.

"…Kakashi…?" Rin's quiet voice spoke.

Minato shook his head and watched as she let out a shuddered breath, closing her eyes and tilting her head down, her forehead almost connecting with her raised knees. The Jonin sat and used a hand on her shoulder to make her lean against his side. He placed a hand on Obito's back, hoping it would provide enough of a source for comfort as the other would allow. He felt one of Rin's arms grasp the back of his flak jacket with a small shaking hand.

He knew that if he had come sooner, he would have been bombarded with questions and emotions being thrown all over the room.

But he had ended up coming later than he expected, which allowed his students to have more than enough time to think deeply about their situation and what it would mean.

Their only hope to get back home was a damaged scroll he wasn't even close to finishing in deciphering.

 _If_ they were able to get back, it wouldn't be any time soon. They wouldn't be able to see any of their family. They had no familiar face at this present era who they could talk to without risking blowing their cover.

And the fact that they literally had the future in their hands – the gateway to the possibility of knowing what would happen to them in the coming years – was hardly an easy reality to face.

 _Kushina_ … _It looks like I won't be coming home today._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although Kudos and/or subscribes/bookmarks make me eternally grateful that people are enjoying this story -
> 
> Please feel free to drop a comment. It helps so much when people give me feedback, constructive criticism, included. To many authors, it is a blessing and such a motivational thrill to see notifications in our inbox. ^^
> 
> (This story is also up in Fanfiction.net under the name of ShiraChan-Desu)


	2. Second Thoughts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last Edit: 2/12/2018
> 
> And for those who don't prefer romance for a time travel story, please be reminded that it is not the main focus. It is just a side development that will help make things a little more interesting. In my opinion. ^^
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. All rights go to Masashi Kishimoto.

 

"Now that we know where we are, we need to keep an eye out for Kakashi."

Minato-sensei handed the both of them their own bag. It was fairly light and when they both opened it, their eyes widened.

Rin reached in and pulled out a black shoulder-length wig and make-up. Further inside were a bunch of clothing. No doubt, Minato-sensei went shopping while they had separated, which explained why he had come back to the hotel past sunset last night.

Obito shifted beside her, and her eyes absorbed the sight of his goggle-less face covered with a brown wig haphazardly placed on top of his head. He let out a shout of surprise so suddenly that Rin flinched, holding up a new pair of goggles.

It was sleek and silver, the lens a bit smaller than she was used to, but it was goggles, nonetheless. It would protect his eyes from drying most of the time.

Minato-sensei was watching him with amusement, and when he saw her looking at him, he gestured to the make-up kit. "Something to cover up the markings. Do you know how to use it, Rin?"

"Yes, sensei." She felt she was too young to use make-up on an everyday basis, but her mother had forced her to learn so that she could use it for special occasions. She never had to cover her markings before, but she had an idea on where to start.

Rin went to a mirror to the side, removing her hitai-ate. As she worked, her eyes caught Minato-sensei staring at the scroll he had placed on the table. "Sensei, what are you going to use?"

"Hmm?" He blinked at her. "Oh. I'll be wearing this." He took out his own bag and removed his hitai-ate. In no time, she was looking at the same brown-haired man as before, except –

"Minato-sensei, what about our eyes?" She always found Minato-sensei's eyes to be unique. No one in Konoha – their Konoha – had eyes the color as his. It was a dead give-away.

She blinked when he held up a small case.

"These are called 'eye-contacts'." He opened it and settled down next to her, showing her the contents.

It was creepy. Like a thin copy of the irises of their eyes. "And these are supposed to change your eye color?"

"Yep." He took one and she watched with horrified fascination as he placed it  _on top_ of his eye, covering the brilliant blue with a deep onyx.

"T-T-That's...is that  _safe_?"

Minato-sensei burst out laughing, messing up her hair with a hand. She looked away from him and resumed her work, embarrassed. And also because it was a bit weird looking at two mismatched eyes.

Since they didn't know how long they would stay, it was only safe for them to put on proper disguises without extensively using chakra and risking detection to maintain the illusion.

"Hey, hey, what is it?" Obito came over, curious. In the mirror, she saw Minato-sensei look towards him, and had to bite back a laugh when Obito yelped and tripped over his own feet as he tried to back away.

Minato-sensei's good-natured voice and Obito's yells of shock washed over her as she finished applying the make-up, turning her face left and right to make sure her clan markings were completely gone from view.

Once she did, she moved past the figure pointing towards Minato-sensei on the floor, grabbed her clothes, and headed towards the bathroom to change.

Minato-sensei had gotten her a smooth pink sweater to put over a black fishnet shirt. The sweater was long enough that it covered half of her thighs, her black form-fitting shorts just peeking out from underneath. She fastened the belt holding her pouches around her sweater and adjusted the wig on her head.

After a small embarrassing episode of fumbling and nervousness, she finally managed to place the foreign objects on top of her eyes, making it turn the hazel color it had been before. It wasn't that bad, she realized. In fact, she barely felt the eye contacts.

She stared at the mirror. The shoulder-length black hair bunched slightly on her shoulders and there was a small fringe hanging on the left side of her face, far from the evenly distributed hair she bore underneath.

Rin nodded to her reflection and headed out.

Two completely different-looking males looked up at her. A man and a boy.

The only man in the room had multi-colored brown hair, straight and hanging calmly rather than the chaotic mess of blonde hair. He was in the standard uniform that she and Obito had seen several ninja wear, signaling their allegiance to Konoha. Sandaled boots donned his feet, and she recognized Minato-sensei's personal pouch on his hip.

The boy had lighter brown hair, but was quite messy in comparison. Blue eyes blinked at her underneath strands of black bangs. He wore a navy blue jacket with a white shirt. Black slightly baggy pants hugged his legs. The standard shinobi footwear was the same color as his pants, leading up to the wrappings adorning the lower part of his calves.

After a short period of briefing, they made their way downstairs, waving goodbye to the innkeeper who didn't seem to see their gestures, but stared blankly towards the doors as they opened and closed it.

"So where's the library, sensei?" Obito asked, eyes looking all over the place, absorbing the morning atmosphere.

After the emotion-fueled episode from last night, Rin and Obito had fallen asleep, exhausted from the mental activity their brains had overcome.

They had awoken when the sun hung high in the sky, translucent rays filtering through the open window, illuminating Minato-sensei's figure as he was setting the table with plates, the smell of breakfast flooding their noses in a disarming sensation.

They had eaten their food in silence, and after Minato cleared away the table, he sat them down once again, and began speaking in such a calm, reassuring way that eventually – slowly, meditatively – started to slow the turmoil in their hearts.

Minato-sensei was not just their Jonin leader, nor was he just a parental figure who cared and nurtured them in the ways they needed to survive.

There was a reason why the Sandaime had entrusted the unknown scroll to him. He was a master of seals, one of the most knowledgeable and prodigious shinobi Konoha has ever had a chance to come across. His own girlfriend hailed from a clan that had been famously known for their fūinjutsu.

If there was one person who would be able to decipher the sentences of gibberish and get them back home safely, it was Minato-sensei. That's the thought that Rin and Obito decided to hold onto, the string of promise that led back home.

Obito in particular seemed to recover quickly, not one to always mope around, deciding that he would use it as his own adventure, finding out as much as he could about how different Konoha is compared to how it was previously. On the outside, that is.

While they expected the future to be more advanced, they didn't expect it to be changed to the point of it being utterly baffling. But, as Rin started following after Minato-sensei who had begun to move down the road, she could still notice that some things didn't seem to change.

The buildings were still colorful, and there were even some houses that looked similar to some she had seen in the past. This area, in particular, had tall looming shapes, the likes of which made it difficult to see the landscape behind it unless they took to the rooftops. Just like some of the ninja passing by above them.

Children still ran through the streets, laughter pealing from their throats and arms waving around in their haste. Every now and then, Rin would hear the sound of birds chirping, flapping their wings across the vast open blue sky.

Right now, they had left behind their time period, the places and people behind them. But she had to remember that it was still  _home_.

A young lady with long midnight blue hair gently smiled when Rin's wandering gaze happened to land on her at the same time the woman had scoped the market and briefly look at their little group.

She held a basket of fresh produce on her arm, turning back around to thank the person at the stall.

Rin belatedly realized the woman had pupil-less, milky eyes. The tell-tale signs of a Hyuga clan member.

She turned around and caught up with Obito and their sensei, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Yes, they may not have their family and friends beside them, but this was still Konoha. It harbored the future generations, and set Rin's heart and mind at ease that their Konoha would be strong and safe even after the Third Shinobi World War, and continue living strong enough to get through another war altogether.

It was strange to think that yesterday, after the time-travel revelation, she had been almost ready to break down and cry. Granted, she had been almost as excited as Obito when the shock had worn off after their meeting with Ino, and saw everything they happened to see in a new light.

But it was when Obito and Rin were waiting together for Minato-sensei and left to their own thoughts that the uneasiness started to trickle into their minds, plaguing the joy until it molded and festered into a murky ball of anxiety and fear.

Minato-sensei was able to bring them back up, relight the flame to scare away the shadows, provide them with a sturdy ground to step upon until they were able to get back. But there was still one thing that was left unresolved. One thing that their minds could not be placated through mere words alone.

Kakashi…

Rin gnawed on her bottom lip, a fist clenching by her side.

She had seen him disappear right before her eyes. He had been nearby her, the closest compared to Obito and Minato-sensei, but she couldn't help but doubt.

Had Kakashi not been in range of the scroll?

Was that why he was not here with them? Was he actually just safely back home?

"I won't deny that possibility, Rin," Minato-sensei said. The kunoichi blinked, not realizing that she had spoken out loud.

Obito walked beside her, attentive, eyes drawn away from a stall selling strange-looking masks.

"So you're saying that Bakashi could actually just be relaxing at home without us, Minato-sensei?"

"Well," Minato-sensei sweat-dropped, "I don't think Kakashi would be relaxing if he saw us just disappear like that. If he's back at home, he should have reported it to the Hokage."

Rin looked up at him. "How long do you think it will take for you to decipher the scroll, sensei?"

Minato-sensei's eyes narrowed as he thought. "As long as there is nothing too difficult to cause delay…I'd say a week. But," he looked at them, "don't be surprised if it takes longer. Fūinjutsu is nothing to laugh at, and it would be easier if there was another experienced eye to look over it with me."

"But you said you want this to remain a secret from anyone else."

"Exactly." Minato-sensei came to a stop and walked in front of them, bending to their level for privacy. "Remember, I'm allowing you both not to stay in the hotel until we leave because we don't know yet if Kakashi came to the future with us. We still need to keep a look out and I still need to work on this scroll. I'm trusting you to  _not_ try to figure out what has happened since our time or try to deliberately find people you are familiar with."

He stared at them with expectation until they solemnly nodded.

"For all the endless opportunities this could bring, we shouldn't even be here. It's only right that it is not our decision to figure out if there's anything we want to change. In the wrong hands, this scroll – our knowledge, could be taken advantage of. We can't let that happen, and so if anyone even  _speaks_ of anything that sounds important to the future or if you even  _see_ someone who looks familiar, I want you to walk away. Do you understand, Obito? Rin?"

"Yes, sensei," Rin said. Beside her, Obito frowned contemplatively before also giving his assent.

"After all, I don't think the sheer magnitude of what we may encounter will be particularly fun to erase from our minds," Minato-sensei smiled knowingly to Obito and patted their heads (it wouldn't do good to ruffle their hair like he usually does).

They reached the library less than 15 minutes later, and after an extra "be careful" from their team leader, Minato-sensei waved and disappeared into the building.

Obito was practically fidgeting beside her and she sighed good-naturedly, grabbing his hand and walking off into a random direction. "Let's go," she sang.

Rin could feel his hand spasm for a few seconds, but she dismissed her curiosity when he recovered like nothing had happened.

They walked down a street that seemed to subtly curve in a way that probably followed the circumference of Konoha's walls. She wasn't really sure, the houses, apartments, and towers around them were just that large enough to apparently conceal the border-line itself. That, or they were just far enough away from it to the point where it seemed smaller than usual.

To her delight, they came across an area that seemed to be holding a little mini-festival. Stall-booths full of games and food surrounded the square, decorated with an assortment of confetti and streamers.

She pulled her teammate around, wide hazel eyes eagerly absorbing the sights before her. She stopped before one specific stall, which, upon examination, was a game that dealt with catching goldfish as a prize.

Obito grabbed a fishing net, not noticing the shopkeeper stare at the row of nets in confusion afterward, and tried to hand it to Rin. She smiled at him and shook her head, but summoned a Bunshin to keep watch as they were otherwise occupied.

Rin giggled as she watched Obito valiantly attempt to capture a goldfish, nearly falling over in his concentration over the small pool of water.

In just a few minutes, Rin was holding a bag of water that Obito – who looked a bit wet – had grabbed for her at the stall, a small goldfish swimming around curiously within.

Rin spared a curious glance at the person in charge of the stall booth, who's frozen finger was pointing at the pool of water, staring at the bag in her hand with a shocked look on his face, before Obito burst out – "Look, Rin!"

They went to a few other stalls, but although Obito wanted to try out a few tossing and shooting games, Rin reminded him that it was unfair because they were ninjas and most of the people attempting to get prizes were civilians.

The two Genin wandered out of the square and Rin convinced Obito to copy her and send his own shadow clone to scope the area while they were outside.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the air of grilled food and market through her nose.

Cobblestone ground pressed against the soles of their feet, reminding Rin once again of the new age they had found themselves in. There was something remarkably fresh about this place, this future Konoha, that she felt she was strangely getting addicted to.

Ahead of them, a couple walked side-by-side, the male's arm swung over the woman, who held the hand on her shoulder with one of her own. The woman was smiling softly as she stared into his eyes as he talked.

Rin felt a trace of envy trickle into her heart.

One day, she would want to be that woman. Walking tall and beautiful, mature and loving. While the man…

She felt her cheeks heat up with the thoughts of silver-hair, before the flash of emotion was immediately replaced with deep worry.

What could Kakashi be doing right now? Was he thinking about them? Was he somewhere, wondering where they were?

Despite how deep her infatuation of him was, Rin wasn't dense. She recognized his flaws, bore with his cutting words with a smile and a heavy heart. Ever since he left the Academy, after word came of something unfortunate that happened to his father, he seemed to care less about the people around him.

There was a small hint of doubt in her belief that Kakashi would look high and low for his teammates, if he was able to, but she was willing to overlook it to believe in her teammate.

For all the rule-following bit that he was, he was still human. And she hoped that, if not her meager attempts in having him open up, Minato-sensei and Obito would break down the barriers that he held.

There were just some things that she found nearly impossible to understand.

"Y'know, Rin…"

Obito was looking at the blue open skies, and Rin could imagine that he had been whistling as she was lost in her thoughts.

"I wonder how far into the future we are."

She cocked her head at him.

"I mean we don't really know when the Fourth Shinobi War took place. What if we're like a hundred years into the future?" He turned to her with an excitement she could sense, even under the layer of disguises. "Do you think they have something so advanced that we don't even have to pick up garbage from the river anymore?

Rin rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Obito, wouldn't they make something more important first instead of helping get rid of D-ranks? Was it that traumatizing?"

"Of course!" He was pouting now. "Especially when Bakashi tripped me and Minato-sensei had to take that fish out of my shirt!"

"…Kakashi wasn't even close to you when you fell."

"His fingers twitched!"

"Obito," she sighed, shaking her head exasperatedly. It was a testament to her patience and fondness for her best friend that she wasn't annoyed at him. It also helped that she knew he didn't fully believe in his own words, either.

"Still," Obito calmed down, "Everything may look a bit different, but nothing big has changed."

Rin nodded in agreement. "I guess we're probably not that far ahead into the future, then. Unless they've created something to make all the houses here look so nice. And the ground..." She pointedly looked down as they walked, Obito doing the same. "How did they even make something like this? It's not even that bumpy."

Obito stopped walking and crouched down, sweeping fingers over the ground. "You're right," he said, wonder lacing his voice.

Rin continued walking and her best friend immediately caught up with her. They walked in silence for a long while.

Then Obito's stomach rumbled.

A blush dusted his cheeks and Rin giggled.

She looked around, a sign a ways ahead of them caught her eye. She turned and pointed towards it, looking at her teammate. "There's a café over there. Let's eat breakfast before you starve."

And at that point, her stomach chose just the right time to punish her for being left out.

Obito laughed, Rin's face flushed and, not being able to come up with anything to say, she quickly marched off towards the shop.

It took a while for his laughter to fade, but eventually he came up next to her again.

Except this time, he slipped his hand in hers.

She blinked at him. There was a sort of flush to his cheeks, but he was grinning broadly at her and she couldn't help but smile right back.

_Even with those horrid goggles, I know he's just going to snatch you up one day._

Rin startled at the voice in her head, looking around cautiously, before concluding that it was just a memory of yesterday.

As they came up to the front counter in the café and Obito eagerly ordered, Rin's eyes cast down as she thought back to another important part of their mission.

Ino-san…

They had told Minato-sensei about their encounter with who they were sure was a kunoichi off-duty. After they finished describing it to him, he told them to try to avoid her at all costs.

Rin had no trouble agreeing to that.

Ino-san seemed like such a good person, but she was too observant for them to risk encountering once again.

Rin and Obito had been unprepared, caught off guard by how quickly they had been caught up in an almost compromising confrontation. She had to give credit to their confusion, as well, for their slipups.

But.

She knew they had to do better. Both she and Obito wore their hearts on their sleeves, but if they were to get into this type of undercover mission in their future, they would need to play up to their acting skills and learn to hide their emotions well.

This whole unofficial mission made her feel so uneasy.

Never before did she have to take such extra care in her words and actions. Especially towards people that they talked to.

And if Ino-san was anything to go by, there could be more than a handful of shinobi who aren't in full regalia all the time, thus making it even more difficult to avoid them.

She knew it would be simple for her to try to avoid talking to anyone they didn't need to. But Obito…

She loves her best friend, but sometimes he has a tiny problem of staying low. She knew he could do it when it counts, but that ability tends to…waver the longer it's required.

A hand slipped into hers and tugged, causing her to almost stumble and wrench her hand away.

She stopped, however, when she realized that it was the person she was just thinking about who was pulling her towards a table.

And now there was the handholding.

Since they were younger, it was usually Rin who would always initiate contact. Kakashi, being too uncomfortable with close proximity as it was, and Obito being too hesitant.

Rin wondered if it was because of the situation they were in that Obito was being even more protective over her than usual.

"I got us some onigiri," Obito said, grinning at her as they sat across each other. "I bet you'll find something surprising on your plate."

They were in the future, but some things never changed.

"Onigiri," she sighed with a smile. "I should've known." She blinked, then, "You put something else with mine?"

He just grinned that grin that made it seem like the sun was shining on her. "You'll see."

Eventually, the food was done and Obito came with two plates. He set one of them in front of her, and her eyes widened briefly before she laughed.

Strawberries.

Obito ordered strawberries to be put alongside her onigiri.

Rin looked up at him fondly, watching him bite his food with gusto. He paused when he noticed her staring, mumbling around his mouthful, "'fumfing wrrn?"

Her lids closed as she gave him a full-face smile. "Nothing's wrong, Obito."

 

* * *

 

Three figures neared a familiar café.

There was sniffing, and an abrupt sneeze.

“So, this is where you’ve been hiding…”

 

* * *

  

Obito let out a loud burp. He leaned back against the seat, arms stretching up and around with a satisfied grin.

Rin stacked the plates up – Obito couldn't help but add another to their menu – and set them aside so that it would be easier for one of the staff to pick them up.

The epitome of kindness.

Rin's eyes connected with his. Hazel. A few shades lighter than the usual brown.

Sometimes, whenever he snuck a peak at his teammate, he had to remind himself that it was Rin underneath the layer of makeup and costume.

But she was still there, in her movements, her actions, the smiles that his eyes absorbed as if he were gulping for air.

As the days went by, it was becoming easier and easier to admit the fact that he was really head over heels for his teammate.

But then, this had happened.

Ever since he had woken up this morning, he had been thinking about Rin's reaction to the lady's words nonstop.

She had looked...confused. And not at all as embarrassed as he was.

He never knew the extent of which Rin's feelings were for Kakashi, more for self-preservation than anything else. But he would rather have had found it out on his own terms than have it flung into his face so harshly. Sort-of.

If you would call having your love interest be barely flustered at the prospect of a courting, then yes, he would consider that as at  _least_ a bit harsh.

He supposed he deserved it. For being such a humongous coward and not professing his feelings before it was too late. Before Rin could only think about Kakashi – tiny, jerk-wad, The-Rules-Are-The-Law Bakashi – as the groom to her wedding day.

Obito was just a friend to her. A  _best_ friend - which was more than he ever thought was possible, at least - and nothing more.

But he was not going to let that get in the way of protecting Rin however he could.

Kakashi was in no way, mind-set or emotions-wise, able to return Rin's feelings. And he knew he wasn't being naïve.

Kakashi was strong, talented, and had the potential to be one of the best shinobi in the village, even if Obito never admitted it out loud. But for all his knowledge, he was sure that the idiot wouldn't even know romance if it him in the face.

And that's where Obito comes in.

He sure as heck wasn't going to try to convert Kakashi and force him to gain real emotions. But he was going to save Rin from the unfortunate situation that she was in.

Because love interest or not, she was his best friend. And he realized now that if he wanted to save her from a sure path of hurt and heartbreak, he needed to do something about it.

And he knew Rin.

She, above all others, would never accuse him of anything. She was always so patient, so kind, the person who understood him the most out of everyone in the whole entire world.

And he trusted her. He trusted that she would forgive him if he managed to slip up along the way. If he broke the boundary that he had forged, for their friendship's sake, and ended up tripping over his own feet.

Obito just wasn't sure if he could trust himself. If he could ever forgive himself if he hurt Rin – beyond what Kakashi could unintentionally do to her – because of his impatience, or his stupid big fat mistakes.

But Rin…He knew she would be able to get through it. She was strong, in spirit and in mind.

And that's why he was willing to take the step forward now.

Because if it was the fate of her peace against his…he would choose her's every time.

"Rin...could I say something?"

His teammate, who had opened her mouth to say something, probably to ask why he was staring at her, barely blinking, paused. Her mouth closed, and then after a moment she opened it up again. "What is it, Obito?"

His hands that were laid on top of the table clenched tightly.

"Rin…I—"

Something sharp clamped over his head.

Silence reigned over their table, before Obito broke it with a screech, hands reaching upwards to dislodge the offending object – which, thankfully, didn't even pierce skin – from his head. But before he could even touch it, the weight disappeared, and he leapt up onto his seat, grabbing a kunai and holding it out in front of him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rin do the same.

But when he focused on what was in front of him, past the crooked visor of his goggles, he froze.

"Mind telling us why you felt the need to wear  _this_ , little brat?"

A large white dog he recognized as a ninken from the Inuzuka clan barked at him. The man beside him, bearing the markings of one from the said clan stood beside him, holding up a slightly slobbered brown –

Obito reached up in a panic, realizing suddenly why his head felt even less heavy than he would have expected.

"First a henge, and now you've upgraded to a full costume. Smart, but you probably should have avoided having people touch you at all, if you wanted to be really stealthy about it."

The last person, he recognized. Rin gasped.

"I-Ino-san?"

The blonde-haired young woman winked.


	3. Compromised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Those rights go to Masashi Kishimoto.
> 
> Last Edit: 2/12/2018
> 
>    
> READ THIS CHAPTER CAREFULLY...

 

The tension was thick between the two groups.

"Do you need something...Ino-san?" Rin carefully asked, the suffocating air making her stance tense.

Ino waved a hand, as if to dispel it. "Oh my,  _relax_ , we just want to talk. There's no need to get all jumpy."

"Then why'd you attack me?" Obito growled.

"Why are you wearing a wig?" the Inuzuka retorted, his smirk grating on Obito's nerves.

"We're just hiding from some friends," Obito lied, and Rin nodded. "We want to see how long we could go without them finding out where we are."

Ino raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think they'll be able to find you in such a big place like Konoha? Do your friends have some special ability or something that can help them see past your disguises? Or find you anywhere in the village?"

She was fishing for information.

"What about you?" Obito countered, trying to steer away from that topic. It would do them no good if they were to drop a hint regarding the presence of a third person to their group. "How'd you find us?"

"Oh, so now you're accusing me of following you guys?" Ino said, offense lacing her tone coupled with innocent blinking eyes. "We've only just met once."

"You have someone from the Inuzuka clan with you," Rin spoke up, undeterred by Ino's responding attempt to distract them. "Not only that, we happen to meet in the same place less than a day later. That's a little suspicious, Ino-san."

Ino appraised her. After a long moment, her eyes sharpened. She must have seen something in Rin, in her unyielding countenance, that she decided to drop the playful act. "We've just got finished with a war, Rin-chan," she said, keeping her voice low to not be heard over the murmur in the café. "So I guess I'm sorry if some of our nerves are a bit high when there is so much going on."

She looked Rin and Obito up and down, and continued, "So when I came across you both, two little pre-teens who looked absolutely adorable together, talking to me about unrequited love –" Obito turned red "– and the biggest war the world has ever faced, imagine my surprise when it looks as if they were hearing it for the first time.

"Honestly speaking, I had my doubts. You could've lost your memory or something or the other, but then I wondered…what kind of kid hides under a henge and calls himself 'Obito'?"

"How'd you know it was a henge in the first place?" Obito blurted out, before pausing and saying, slightly offended, "And what's wrong with that name?"

"She's a sensor," The male shinobi said, an amused and taunting glint to his canine smile, "She felt it."

A smirk quirked the edge of Ino's lips, a smug side to her that Rin and Obito had not been able to witness the first time. "And as for the name…" Aqua-green eyes perused through the café dramatically, "It's not exactly something we should talk about here."

…What was that supposed to mean?

The stubbled Inuzuka peered at their blank expressions, and barked out a laugh. "Do you seriously not know? I thought gossip spreads faster than it takes for Ino to use the bathroom every morning." Ino's eyebrow twitched.

Probably sensing the rising argument, Rin spoke.

"You still didn't say how you found us."

"This." Ino reached into her bag, Rin and Obito tensed, and she pulled out something that fit in her fist. Holding it out in front of her, she opened her palm.

It was a vial. On the inside there were a few strands of…"Hair?" Obito said dumbly, before his hand whipped to his head. "You kept it?"

"Of course." Ino rolled it around her fingers. "Hair carries the natural scent, so I just had to take the opportunity." She winked. "Don't feel too bad. People usually don't think of this type of method."

"But why now?" Rin asked, eyes wary but alert. "Why not try to find us yesterday, after we left?"

"Because this idiot here decided that, of all times, he wanted to take dip in the spa," she gave a stink-eye towards the man. "The last place I would expect a mutt to be."

" _I just came back from a mission_!" The man – whose name Obito still didn't know, but looked around the same age as Ino-san – was noticeably short-tempered. "And stop calling me mutt!"

A staff member of the restaurant walked up to them. "Excuse me, sir, ma'am. Is there something wrong?"

The Inuzuka muttered petulantly as Ino turned to the waiter. At the same time, Rin subtly slid into a stance, and Obito, immediately recognizing what she was about to do, followed.

His teammate jumped to the next aisle behind the waiter before dashing for the doors, successfully blocking the shinobi from reaching her without bowling over the civilian. Obito, on the other hand, leapt high into the air, just barely avoiding the jaws of Akamaru who had noticed their movement first, onto an empty table before making another jump towards the exit. The patrons affected in the café cried out in outrage.

"H-hey, wait!"

"Excuse me – sorry for disturbing – Kiba,  _move it_!"

"Please don't jump on the tables, we just wiped them–!"

From the voices behind them, Obito knew that they couldn't have chosen a better time for the older shinobi to be distracted.

He and Rin made it out of the café, and just as Obito was about to jump to the rooftops, Rin stopped him. "We're smaller than them," she said, and started running, dodging civilians that filled the busy street. Obito didn't even hesitate for a full second before he followed, moving quickly as quickly as his taijutsu skills allowed.

Behind them, they heard the tell-tale signs of the other shinobi following, barking and yelling, included. Rin and Obito were relying on the human instinct that they would follow the same path of who they were closely pursuing in order to buy some time.

Buy time for what, they didn't really know.

If Ino-san had an Inuzuka with her, she would be able to find them no matter where they hid in the village. Obito has only met some of the clan members briefly, but he knew enough about them that their sense of smell is the best in the entire village.

If they went to Minato-sensei, they would risk blowing his cover, not only theirs. But if it turns out that they are no match for the shinobi, they may need to call upon Minato-sensei's help.

For now, the shinobi didn't know of Minato-sensei's existence, much less where he was. If they find someplace nearby his location, and find some way to notify him if they need to, they just might be able to get through this without getting caught.

Obito looked behind them. The shinobi had annoyed looks on their faces, before they leapt into the air. Obito turned back to his teammate, "Rin, they're going on the rooftops now!"

The both of them immediately did the same, knowing that their little act was over.

The problem was, there was a reason why Obito and Rin didn't take to the rooftops first. The Uchiha looked back again, pushing for more speed when he saw how quickly they were catching up.

"Dammit." He knew their claws were more than just for show, but it was ridiculous how the Inuzuka, both Kiba and Akamaru, were moving so fast. And Ino was only just a couple steps behind.

They were following alongside the path he and Rin had taken for their trek, and it was only then that he realized how much ground they had covered in just a couple of hours. If they were in the old Konoha, they would have been able to take shortcuts to find where the library was, but right now they did not have that luxury.

When Obito said Konoha looked different, it  _was_ different. And that included the roads – no, scratch that – the  _entire_  layout of Konoha.

 _It's like they decided to tear everything down and build it all over again_ , Obito thought, annoyed at the trouble it was causing them at the moment.

They finally rounded about the square that they had stopped at for the booths, and immediately he and Rin redirected themselves along the road leading to what looked to be Konoha's gates in the far distance.

Rin looked behind them and then caught his eye, an urgent look on her face, "Obito, they're too fast, we won't be able to outrun them!"

He turned around too, and saw that there was just one rooftop between them. He briefly wondered why they didn't just try to box them in, but he figured that with the distance between them that they were overtaking, they didn't feel the need to.

Obito grit his teeth.

He stepped on the next rooftop and leapt up high, twisting around to throw a barrage of shuriken towards their pursuers.

The two from the Inuzuka clan merely twisted in mid-air to avoid the projectiles while Ino-san deflected them with a kunai. But he saw their eyes widened when a large fireball (smaller than usual to not even graze a metal rooftop) suddenly erupted towards them.

"That's—" the male shinobi's voice cut off.

Obito and Rin didn't look back immediately to see the results. Relief watched over them when they saw the library several acres away. There was a clearing behind the house that sat next to the public building - it was their only chance.

Obito's ears picked up voices from behind, heated, but they were not in a close enough range to hear.

"Are they still close?" he asked, landing on a wooden rooftop and applying chakra through his legs to jump to the next.

Rin glanced back for a brief moment. "Far too close," she answered uneasily.

"Dammit." Obito looked back, seeing the far-off mountain at the back of their pursuers getting further and further while the shinobi themselves came closer. "At this rate, they're going to catch up to us before –"

Something strange caught his eye.

The mountain behind the shinobi, many leagues off. It was the Hokage Mountain for sure, with the same three heads he was used to seeing every single time they went to the Academy because it was one of the nearest buildings to the historic monument.

Except…there wasn't only three.

There were two others, and a rectangular construction of wood right next to the head – the fifth head – of a woman who seemed strikingly familiar, even from this distance.

And then he saw the fourth.

He squinted at it, feeling a strange sense of déjà vu the more he looked.

And then his eyes widened.

"Obito—!"

His foot had slipped underneath him.

Obito's entire body and expression seemed to freeze for the span of a whole second before reality clicked. His face was the first to make contact on the paneled roof, garnering a pained choked-off yelp, which then evolved into screaming as he began to slide, fingers and feet grappling against the smooth surface futilely. Rin had been ahead of him by a step, so by the time she was able to land, turn around, and come back, he was already falling off the edge.

Luckily, the house was only one story tall, enough for his body to take without major injury, but he still hit the ground with enough impact to force the air from his lungs.

Obito took a second to just lay there, gathering his breath, wide eyes staring up at the blue sky without really seeing.

Rin landed right next to him, frantically asking if he was alright, worried hazel eyes frequently glancing back to the rooftops where, no doubt, the other shinobi were coming.

"Can you get up, Obito? Are you hurt anywhere?"

The stone head rose up to his mind again, and before he knew it, the words drifted out of him breezily with every bit of shock that clamped up his bones.

"Sensei is going to be Hokage."

Rin's eyes widened. "What?"

Ino-san and Kiba landed a few meters away.

Rin immediately got up from kneeling down, grabbing a kunai and shifting into a defensive position. At the back of his mind, Obito knew they didn't really look formidable right now, especially with him lying on the ground in a butterfly pose.

He should probably get up now, shouldn't he?

He lifted himself slowly onto two feet, mind a whirlwind of bewilderment and shock.

Minato-sensei… _their_ sensei was going to become Hokage? Minato-sensei was someone he greatly admired, who was trustworthy and way stronger than Obito's own abilities, but he had never considered the possibility of him gaining the position that Obito has always dreamed of.

Who would've, honestly? Obito still remembered Minato-sensei's wounded puppy face when Kushina-nee had thrown a fit because he forgot to tell her that he would be gone on a mission for over a week. It was very disturbing to see their usually calm and reserved sensei act so depressed, only to shine like a million suns the next day after the couple made up. And Obito didn't want to get started on the lingering glances the two give whenever they thought no one was looking.

Yeesh, one would think they were a married couple already. They were already behaving like one.

Obito shook his head, the random train of thought dislodging from his mind, focusing back at the situation at hand.

Right. So there was Kiba and Ino, his mind supplied helpfully.

Kiba and Ino.

Kiba and…Ino.

His eyes widened.  _Where is Akamaru?_  Jerking his head, a look around the area revealed that the ninken was nowhere in sight, making his skin prickle with unease.

"You know, we could take him to the Hospital if you just come with us right now," Ino was saying. "Does he have a heart problem? Is he ill?"

"No," Rin said firmly, continuing to hold the kunai aloft. Her hazel eyes darted everywhere, looking for a shift in the shadows or a disturbance in the trees, never letting her eyes stray from Ino and Kiba for long.

"How does he even know the fireball jutsu, anyway?" Kiba eyed them suspiciously, feral features causing it to look like a glare. But then he grinned, canine teeth stretching into view. "Whatever, we'll just get our answers when we bring you in."

"What makes you so confident that will happen?" Obito asked, peeved at the arrogant look on his face, getting his own weapons ready and checking up on his chakra supply. More than enough.

Kiba snorted. "Kid, you're up against one of Konoha's strongest," he bared his teeth, making it obvious who he was specifically talking about, "You might as well surrender now before you regret it."

Ino made a dismissive scoff. "You? One of the strongest? Don't make me laugh."

"Naruto and Sasuke don't count!" Obito took a moment to try to place the names, but they were completely unfamiliar. "I'm talking about people who don't have godly powers or –" Kiba glanced at them warily, "buddies with tails."

_You have one, too._

Their thoughts echoed Ino's response entirely.

"You know what I mean!"

"Still, you can't just exclude people when your oversized ego can't take a beating, Kiba." Ino eyed them. "For that matter, he's right. You both don't stand a chance against us."

Obito bristled. "Why don't we see if that's true?"

"What, you still want to fight?" Ino asked, surprised.

"We may be kids," Obito said, shifting into a stance, "But we're not stupid."

The male shinobi was too overconfident. If they played their cards right, it would be his weakness, using his underestimation of them to sneak past his guard.

Ino, on the other hand, was a wild card. She looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't peg if she was from a clan or not, so he didn't know what kind of abilities she could be hiding up her sleeve. With her outfit, a long purple skirt that went all the way down to her ankles, not to mention her hair, it would be impractical if she favored taijutsu. Which meant she was probably a mid to long-range fighter.

"I'll take Kiba," Obito whispered to Rin.

Kiba was fast, but so was Kakashi, who was a Chunin and a prodigy. Obito was usually able to keep up in their spars until he (grudgingly) loses.

It would have been easier for him to take advantage of Ino's possible weakness, but while he knew Rin was able to hold her own in a taijutsu spar, she wasn't skilled enough to go against such a hard-hitting and fast opponent like Kiba. It was almost like throwing her to the wolves.

Rin, as he expected, understood instantly. She nodded.

A thought suddenly came to him. "Our shadow clones." They never dispelled them, as they were still out roaming the village, keeping an extra eye out for their missing teammate. He could send a signal to them for backup, especially since they didn't know where Akamaru was.

He looked at Rin, gripping his kunai tighter. Rin tightened the grip on her own kunai in answer.

He did the hand-signs, took a deep breath, and pumped chakra to his mouth. "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" The resounding fireball blocked their view and would hopefully distract them long enough, so he quickly sent a barrage of smaller fireballs up into the sky.

Rin leapt forward, following right behind the wave of heat that was Obito's first attack. The moment that Ino came into view as the older began to land a ways to the side, she attacked.

Ino's eyes narrowed as she spun to the side to avoid the explosive note attached to the thrown kunai. It detonated on the spot she was previously, at the same time that Rin reached her just as she was gaining her feet.

Ino grabbed her kunai, steel meeting steel in a deadly lock, white sparks flying into the air and dissipating seconds after its existence. The two kunoichi pushed against each other and separated. Twisting around to catch momentum, Rin threw a barrage of shuriken. She landed and skidded slightly, sandals kicking up a small plume of dirt, and pushed her body into the air once more.

The blonde kunoichi easily bent her torso to the side to avoid the projectiles. She straightened and brought her arms up to block the foot heading towards her abdomen, and by the way her arms almost gave way before stilling, Rin was sure she testing the amount of strength she had in her attacks.

They exchanged blows, frequently alternating between hand-to-hand combat and using their weapons. Rin could hear the sounds of shouting and mocking laughter, as well as feel the tell-tale signs of Obito's signature technique, but a few glances later told her that he was holding up relatively okay. And so was she.

It was reason enough to be suspicious.

One would think that it would be hard to fight in an outfit like Ino's. But it didn't look to be much of a hindrance. Ino had enough skill to prevent her hair from getting caught in Rin's grasp, and although there was definitely a slight hitch to her breath that suggested she did not have a lot of stamina for a lot of effort in taijutsu, she was definitely not starting to lose breath as Rin herself was.

Rin sparred with all of her team-mates whenever Minato-sensei ordered for a taijutsu training match. She didn't have much to offer in the category, since she was mostly training to be a medic-nin, but she knew it could prove useful in a real battle.

Their team had only just started going beyond the borders of Konoha for missions, and for the most part they were all uneventful, with little interaction with enemy shinobi involved. Which meant less battle experience for Rin.

But she knew enough from the spars with her teammates and even some classmates, to recognize when her opponent was holding back.

Ino was going easy on her.

And on the other side of the area, Obito had reached a similar conclusion.

His opponent was far more cocky and far less serious compared to Ino, but the moment his features grew even more feral and his nails even elongated, not even using any more ninjutsu, Obito found himself hard-pressed to avoid getting directly hit. Which he failed several times, if the bruises and several cuts on his body were anything to go by.

His only victory was a peeved look on Kiba's face when he finally managed to singe a fair part of the furry coat that was over the Konoha vest. Too bad Obito gained a nasty cut on his leg because of that.

"Oi, Kiba!" Ino yelled. "I said restrain them, not let them bleed to death!"

He yelled right back, "The kid is avoiding my grabs, what do you think I'm trying to do?"

At the announcement of Obito's injuries, medic-nin mindset taking over in an instinctual action, Rin pushed Ino away, throwing another explosion tag for good measure. Keeping the cloud of smoke in her vision, her head swerved to look at Obito and take scope of his injuries, eyes zeroing in on the blood covering his leg which seemed to be growing larger by the minute.

"Obi—" she said, about to tell him to regroup.

But the rest of his name lost in a wisp of breath when something invisible slammed into her. Her eyes bugged out as her body jolted spasmodically before stilling.

Obito watched with wide eyes as she and Ino both slumped, in a creepily similar fashion. "RIN!" He rushed forward, and Kiba quickly darted to catch Ino's falling body, as he was the closest to them.

"A bit of an overkill, isn't it?" Kiba questioned, even though it was obvious his partner shouldn't be able to answer.

"Shut it, Kiba."

Obito froze in place.

"Still, using your bloodline limit for this?"

"It gets the job done, doesn't it?"

It was Ino's tone and speech and yet…

His teammate's head and shoulders lifted back up. Hazel eyes, narrowed in a way that he's never seen before, stared at him appraisingly. It was Rin's face and yet…yet…

Behind her, he could see Kiba putting his hands on the shoulders of Ino's – unconscious? – body.

It was easy to put two and two together.

"…You took her body," Obito said, the words thick on his tongue.

Ino raised Rin's eyebrow, an action that looked so utterly foreign in Obito's eyes, but said nothing about his observation. "Don't worry, she's still here," Rin's voice stated, finger pointing towards her forehead. "I could feel her pounding, but you won't be hearing from her anytime soon," she paused meaningfully, "that is, if you don't cooperate with us, of course."

Obito took a step forward, only to freeze.

At his movement, Ino had lifted Rin's hand that held the kunai. She held it under her throat, close enough to threaten, but far enough for Rin not to accidently get nicked.

"So are you willing to answer our questions, now?"

Where on earth were their shadow clones? Obito didn't voice the thought, merely swallowing, and hesitantly nodding.

A smirk twitched its way to the corner of Rin's lips – the sight made Obito prickle with unease because  _Rin should_ not  _be wearing that smile_  – at the same time that something moved at the side of his vision.

Discreetly tilting his head to look to the side out of the corner of his eyes, he placed the figure to be just behind Kiba's line of sight, ducking back behind the rooftop.

And then, behind Kiba, —he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling at the luck— was Obito's shadow clone. And he could bet that Rin's own clone was the one who was hiding out on the rooftops.

Ino used Rin's hand to beckon him forward. As he did so, he put up the act of resolutely looking forward, making eye contact with his clone and quickly glancing at Kiba and Ino's unconscious body, before staring forward again. He could play it off as looking at the situation at hand one more time.

He hoped his own copy would be able to understand his message. Although his clone probably didn't know the circumstances, he should know that Ino's unmoving body was vulnerable, and could be used as a bargaining chip. If he could snatch it from under Kiba's grasp, that is.

The Inuzuka sighed, and Obito stopped. The older man scrunched his nose, and Obito's eyes widened in horror.

"Got him, Akamaru?"

And there, right behind Obito's clone who froze in fear, the growling presence of the absent ninken made himself known.

"Oh no…" Obito, panicking, turned to Rin's clone.

She threw a kunai at Kiba, the single sharp point piercing through the air and reaching him in just a second, but he had already grabbed the kunai Ino had abandoned on the ground and deflected it. Ino-in-Rin's body turned her head to watch the proceedings, keeping Obito in her line of sight.

"Rin! Go! Get away!" Tell Minato-sensei!

Kiba smirked, "You're not the only one who use shadow clones for their tricks."

Rin's clone barely had time to turn around at the sudden presence behind her before she was popped out of oblivion. At the same time, Obito's clone gave a yelp of pain before he, too, was forcefully dispelled. The real Obito involuntarily shivered as his clone's memories of being pounced on by a large white dog transferred to him, whatever was left of the clone's chakra returning back to his chakra system.

Time slowed.

Now, this probably would be the time that Obito would fully surrender, giving up hope of finding a way to get out of this hostage situation and finding a way to notify Minato-sensei, before being dragged to the T&I where they will be doomed to a dark and gloomy cell and creepy-looking interrogators with creepy gadgets and even creepier torture devices that dripped with blood.

Or maybe, they would be taken to the Hokage, the sixth Hokage whose head was still being constructed on the mountain and who could quite possibly be a senile old man that has no love for children, and be put to death on the spot. That would've been better for Obito.

But none of those things happened.

And if Obito was being entirely honest, when he looked back, he would've been okay with Minato-sensei arriving out of nowhere just because he somehow had an sixth sense in his brain that alerted him to whenever his Genin were in danger.

He would've taken that.

Anything, but this.

Anything but the sudden bulging of eyes from Rin's body before she jolted violently, remaining still for a split second until she started to fall, only halted because Obito had rushed in to catch her before she collided against the ground.

Anything but Ino's eyes in her real body blearily blinking open before she bolted upright, eyes wandering and passing over the area frantically.

Anything but Akamaru joining the side of a spluttering Kiba who stared at where Rin had been standing before falling, and then mimicked the same strange movements Ino was making.

Anything but Obito hearing the words that burst from Kiba's mouth, incredulous and shocked–

"Where the  _hell_ did they go?"

Because Obito was smart, but he wasn't sure if there would be any mind in the world that could figure out exactly why Kiba and Ino  _couldn't seem to see them._

Obito remained frozen for a long time, even while Ino and Kiba bickered about, even as Rin started to shift in his arms, eyes slowly opening and blinking.

"Did you just let them  _go_?"

"I was watching them just like you were! They just –" Kiba made a garbled sound, accompanied by an elaborate gesture, " _blinked_ out!"

"Even if they ' _blinked_ out', you could just smell them, idiot!"

"Are you kidding me? You were in the girl's body and you didn't even notice anything go wrong, but you're blaming it on  _me_?"

"Just find them, Kiba, they could be anywhere here right now!"

"Obito…?" Rin's voice drifted up to him.

Obito nearly dropped her, but recovered in time to have the sense of mind to put her down slowly so that she wasn't leaning on him like an inverted trust fall. "R-Rin?" His voice was trembling slightly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, her muscles obeying her as she sat up. "Where are…" She turned her head and paused, immediately noticing the oddity Obito himself had noticed. "Obito…Why are they acting like we're not here?"

"Well, um…" he scratched the back of his head in an unconscious gesture, but his still comically wide eyes were anything but sheepish. It probably made him look as creepy as the interrogators he had imagined. "Because we're…not?"

The uncertain tone in his voice, combined with the utter illogical statement, was so blatant that even Rin was giving him a look. "What do you mean, 'we're not'?"

"I think…" he winced, "I think they can't really see us, right now? Or hear us either, I guess…"

"…What?"

Akamaru whimpered, placing a paw on his nose. Kiba seemed to share the sentiment, eyes blinking slowly.

"Kiba?"

"Their scent…disappeared."

" _Excuse_ me?"

Rin and Obito stopped talking, listening in on their conversation.

"I'm serious, the trail just ends here! It's like they teleported."

Ino was struck silent, wide aqua-green eyes displaying her shock entirely. "…Could it be a bloodline limit? A jutsu?"

"You saw. The boy was too busy trying to catch you – er, her, and the girl was under your jutsu the whole time, so she couldn't have done anything."

"Third party interference?" Rin and Obito tensed.

"I didn't smell anyone else nearby us, even now. And the house is empty." Kiba suddenly turned, eyes narrowed. "Wait…someone's—"

Not a few seconds later after he started his sentence, someone dropped into the clearing.

Despite possibly not being able to be seen, Rin and Obito tensed even more. The others, however, had an opposite reaction.

"Sakura!"- "Forehead, what are you doing here?"

It was a pink-haired lady, about the same age as the other two people. Obito had never seen such a pigment on anyone before, he couldn't imagine that she attained it willingly.

Rin, on the other hand, immediately noticed the authority that hung around her figure like an invisible cloak, a face with intelligent emerald eyes underneath a diamond on her forehead.

That certain detail tickled the edges of her mind, reminding her of something so distant, so small…

"Ino, we need you at the Hospital right away." Sakura's tone left no room for argument.

Ino stilled, back straightening and standing at attention. "What happened?"

"Kakashi-sensei won't wake up."

 

* * *

 

Kakashi's head felt heavy.

He opened his eyes sluggishly, blinking past the golden-orange light emanating behind him from the setting sun, peeling the side of his face from the desk.

The Rokudaime Hokage sat up in his chair, onyx eyes blinking, a piece of paper plastered to the side of his face.

It drooped down gloomily.

This was the sight that Shizune came into, and she nearly dropped the stack of papers she held when she looked up and saw blank eyes staring straight back at her unnervingly.

But then everything else registered, and she let out a deep sigh. "You fell asleep, didn't you, Kakashi-sama?"

She closed the door and walked towards his desk, and then paused.

_Oi, oi, drop the –sama, please…_

Her eyes took in his slight pallor to his skin, and the drowning black in his eyes, devoid of any of the sharpness that she was well acquainted to after several months of serving as his secretary.

"Kakashi-sama?"

His eyes slowly focused, the life in his eyes returning as his thoughts organized. One of his hands, just as slowly, reached up and peeled the piece of paper from his face.

"…I'm fine." An automatic response.

Shizune frowned. "You worked too hard today."

Since his appointment as the Hokage some months ago, her new boss would always complain about the workload.

But he was always still diligent to the last stroke.

It was something that one wouldn't expect from the infamous Copy-nin who made it his point to be late to board meetings every single time, several times having to be found and subsequently dragged away from the top of the Hokage Mountain.

(Because of the lack of available construction workers, Kakashi's stone face wasn't finished. The new Hokage himself had insisted that the main priority was to create homes for those who had lost theirs during the Pein invasion. That, and to revamp the inside of the walls to actually look presentable instead of the rubble it had been.

More often than not, when someone was looking for Kakashi during one of his breaks, he would be found standing on top of the Hokage Mountain, looking out over the village.

Every time, without fail, he would stand unmoving above the Fourth Hokage's stone face.

Shizune had a feeling it was one of his ways of gaining closure. Preparing to embrace his role in a recovering village who desperately needed a leader.

Another part of her wondered if he was just attempting to delay the inevitable.)

She was just thankful that he was not willing to let his habits get in the way of what he knew was needed for the village to prosper. Although it would have been even better if he actually viewed the meetings with as much importance as the paperwork and economy.

She didn't actually believe that it would ever be possible.

It was politics, after all.

"No, I'm fine," Kakashi repeated, more of his casual drawl leaking into his tone now. "I just…wanted to take a nap."

Shizune watched as he shifted in his seat, rotating his shoulders and stretching his legs underneath the desk.

"You're moving your head slowly," she noted.

The Hokage froze.

It was true, while he seemed perfectly capable of using all his other appendages, he refrained from moving his head much throughout the whole process. His eyes even seemed to squint a tiny fraction.

Eventually, Kakashi realized that there was no hiding his condition from the medic-nin. "I am," he said calmly.

"Conditions?"

He sighed, but droned, "No notable changes to motor functions. Chakra levels are undisturbed, control–" He took a moment to make a shadow clone, who waved at Shizune lazily before dispelling. "—no change."

She held back a sigh at his mechanical answer. Any other person, and she would think she was being mocked. In Kakashi's case, however, it was just his way of humoring her. "Head?"

"Maa, it's just a little drowsiness from waking up…"

"I'll be the judge of that, Kakashi-sama."

She stepped forward, ignoring the grumble – something about overbearing hens and refusing to drop the honorific – and placed her hands on each side of his temple. Her hands glowed green as she closed her eyes, sensing for any disturbance.

She nodded. "Nothing more than the usual." But just for the sake of his mindset, she erased the headache she could feel brewing in the corner.

Kakashi visibly exhaled.

"Better?"

He nodded. "Thank you, Shizune."

She just smiled.

After his secretary left, Kakashi sagged in his seat, a hand reaching up to clutch the top of his head.

The headache that he knew had been about to rise to become a migraine was gone, but not the pressure, as if his head was filled to the brim. He surmises that it was just a side-effect from taking an involuntary nap. Or perhaps it was the workload finally catching up to his weary brain.

Kakashi sighed tiredly, looking at the papers on his desk before turning his chair halfway to watch the setting sun casting a warm light over the village.

He closed his eyes, the vague heat of the sun tingling his skin and mask.

He had taken off his forehead protector sometime before he had fallen asleep, for reasons he couldn't remember. He was glad, though. It would have been a pain to have the firm metal pressing against his forehead for a few hours straight if he had face-planted sometime during his sleep.

The silver-haired man absently scratched at the skin around the eye that once hid behind his hitai-ate or Anbu mask for many years.

A ghost of pain slithered into existence at the back of his eyes, reminiscent to the after-effects of over-using the Sharingan. Back before it was ripped right out of the socket by Madara in an attempt to go after Obito in the other dimension, and replaced afterwards with his old eye by Naruto's use of the Yin chakra.

Kakashi put a hand to his left eye. No longer the token of friendship from his would-be best friend at the time of his "death", plain inky black replacing the blood-red pupil and black tomoe that occasionally spun lazily in his eye.

For all the unique abilities it had granted him, in the 18 years of him attaining it, easily more than half of his life, it had been a sign of his failures, his regrets.

The pain coiling in his heart, for so long mingling with the chakra leaking through the borrowed eye, a reminder that it was never his in the first place.

That the real owner was the one he had believed he killed through his stupidity and blindness, both literally and figuratively.

Even after the whole revelation that Obito had  _not_ died on that day, and that he had even forgiven Kakashi at the end of the war…it was still something he couldn't get over. His teammate buried under the avalanche of rubble and gigantic rocks was a nightmare that haunted him for months afterwards, only further intensified following the years after Rin's death by his hand.

**_'You failed me.'_ **

...He still remembered some of those dreams until now.

After all, you can't easily erase something that was the definition of your life for so many years.

Since the moment he gained his own Genin team, he has found more reasons to be happy - be proud of whatever he has been able to do, but the regrets were always there like a newly mutated parasite, clinging to his smile, his actions, his thoughts.

Such as the thought that Kakashi  _himself_ had played a key role in driving his teammate to near insanity. That his actions, his failures had indirectly led his former teammate into causing so much suffering for all of the shinobi nations. Into causing so many innocent people to die, the numbers only mounting higher after Obito single-handedly started the Fourth Shinobi World War.

(He didn't blame him. He never did.)

He was well enough to be able to function, held onto his sanity with a vice-like grip despite its slippery surface all these years, and performed the duties that the position of Hokage entailed, despite not officially being instated into the office. Those who didn't know him that well enough – or were just too busy to look underneath the underneath – didn't notice.

But Naruto – his loud-mouthed unpredictable student, the sun that he had forgotten since Minato's death – always did.

His former student had told him what he had seen in Obito's memories and he had no qualms in reminding Kakashi, in that boisterous yet passionate way that never failed to leave him staring without words, that it had been out of his control.

Kakashi would stare at the blonde as he ranted and raved, threatening him and supporting him all at the same time, scolding him beyond anything anyone had been willing and able to do.

And yet sometimes… _—_ He couldn't help it…

Sometimes…he would stare at his former student and see someone taller, with slightly darker blonde hair lengthening to hang around his cheeks, whisker marks disappearing and eyes transforming into solid ocean blue eyes of calm and warmth.

And he wondered.

He wondered what Minato-sensei would have said in Naruto's place.

...But he had already lost that chance. He lost it years ago.

The chance to be the little kid he once was supposed to be, accepting the embraces instead of pulling away – all because he had been too self-absorbed, too stupid, unwilling to listen to his sensei's words before it was too late.

Before the next time he saw his face was through a picture at the funeral.

And the next time he saw him  _alive_  and  _moving_ , was when he and the other past Hokage stepped into the battle, the outcome of the war far more important than having pep talks with far too emotional former students.

They already had had Obito to deal with, after all.

Kakashi took his hand off his restored eye, turning his back on both the view and those fairly depressing thoughts, and grabbing a brush. But one traitorous thought managed to wiggle through his blockade and pause him mid-stroke before he slowly continued, the pressure in his head never ceasing.

…He never did get a chance to say goodbye.

 

* * *

 

_Pale diminutive hands slowly reached forward, pressing against the wood. The door slid open little by little, the reverberation of rolling wood louder than the thunder itself. It grated on his ears, every cell in his body shaking, twitching._

_He couldn't hear anything else._

_The side of the door bumped against the wall._

_Thunder cracked, illuminating a motionless figure on the floor, silver hair gleaming,_ _**red** _ _—_

Kakashi opened his eyes, staring up listlessly.

He hadn't…had a dream about  _that_ for a very long time. At least, not so vivid. He thought his unorthodox ways of gaining closure, like his teammate punching him in the face before lecturing him, or temporarily dying and meeting with his dead father, would've helped that part of his conscience at the very least.

And then his surroundings registered.

He sat up, realizing that he was outside. Which didn't make sense, because hadn't he been in bed?

He stood up from his position on the grass, taking in the area surrounded by trees. He was on one of the Training Grounds, but it looked very familiar, the likes of which he hadn't seen in several years before Konoha was demolished, but he knew like the back of his hand because of how many years he had spent here training himself, or…his team…

His eyes spotted the three training posts at the front.

_A young blonde-headed boy struggling against the bonds holding him to the wood, yelling at his teammates who casually walked away from him with smiles on their faces –_

Something was very wrong here.

He looked up to the clear skies, squinting against the sun high in the sky, a mysterious wind blowing through his silver hair in the complete silence –

Complete silence.

He heard no birds. No wildlife.

Kakashi lifted his head, sniffing the air around him.

He smelled nothing. Not even the grass underneath his sandaled feet.

The only reasonable idea he could think of was that it was an illusion – a genjutsu. But he had never experienced the likes of which there were such obvious disfigurations. To miss the absence of two important senses, as well as the fact that he was dressed in his regular shinobi wear.

Were they just severely underestimating him? And what purpose would they even have to ensnare him in such a half-hearted trap?

Kakashi placed his hands in a seal, "Release!"

Nothing happened.

His eyes narrowed, and he repeated the action, "Release!" His chakra flared, a visible wave of energy pulsing from his body and flattening the grass around him.

There was not even a single waver in his surroundings.

This…was troublesome.

Kakashi took a deep breath through his nose and exhaled. Was there anything strange that he noticed before going to bed?

No, he doubted it. He wouldn't have been able to sleep, otherwise.

His entire day was normal, not counting the unusual weight added to his head after –

…He couldn't feel it.

Kakashi squinted, tilting his head, noting the complete lack of resistance. In fact, his head couldn't have been lighter.

The silver-haired shinobi sighed, running a hand through his gravity-defying hair. The only way his headache would have disappeared while he was in this place is if the caster of the genjutsu had known about his head condition, and then manipulated his mind so that he would believe it did not exist.

Or…perhaps something had been done while he had been taking his nap. Or it had been the reason he had taken a nap in the first place.

An odd distant sound prickled his senses.

Kakashi raised an eyebrow, interest peaking. He tilted his head back, as if he were merely gazing up at the sky, and abruptly disappeared in a shunshin towards the treeline.

He tampered down on his chakra. Using the skills as befitting of one in the stealth force, he melded into the forest life around him.

After a few silent moments of navigating through the small forest, he reached the area where he had first heard the sounds. He jumped onto another tree branch and readied a kunai, placing a hand on the trunk. He closed his eyes and expanded his senses.

There was a very slight shift in the grass just beyond the tree. It was obvious they were trying to hide themselves, and were doing a fairly good job at it, but they were no match for the ex-Anbu captain.

The moment they had revealed themselves, it was only a matter of time before he caught them.

Him/her. From what he could tell, there was only one person.

Unlike the old days, he didn't pull out his Chidori. He couldn't risk it, with how suspicious everything was turning out to be. He was not sure if even killing the perpetrator would resolve the situation he was in.

Instead, he waited, listening for a sign of their movement.

They shifted.

He shoved himself off the branch.

The – small? – shinobi jerked around, a kunai flashing through the air where Kakashi's head had been before he moved it. A second later, they collided to the ground, a cut-off cry of pain wheezing out of the shinobi's lungs as Kakashi sat on his back with both arms subdued and a kunai to his throat.

"Maa, recreating a Konoha that doesn't exist anymore may have confused me for a moment…"

He used the kunai's blunt edge to move the shinobi's face towards him, a single onyx eye glaring, strands of silver hair escaping underneath the blue hitai-ate.

"But don't you think disguising as my younger self is a bit…?"

Kakashi stopped, his newly adapted two-eye smile dropping.

The eye he could see from the imposter had immediately widened upon taking a good look at Kakashi's face. What could be seen of it, that is.

Kakashi watched as the onyx eye shone with anger and a small dose of fear at being caught, only for it to be wiped away very quickly to be replaced with disbelief. And shock.

"T-Tou-san?"

Kakashi just stared.

And then, just quickly as those emotions had come, they locked down, eye narrowing and focusing. "No. It can't be. You look like…" He didn't finish the thought, but the suspicious yet faintly alarmed glance told everything.

 _No_. Yes.

 _It can't be_. Yes it really couldn't. There was just absolutely no logic in this. No explanation.

 _You look like_ …No, it was the other way around. This shinobi underneath him looked exactly like he was before he became a teen. Therefore, Kakashi certainly had rights to that statement, since he came first.

Or...did this Kakashi come first?

...Was he actually considering this insane idea?

If he were to tell someone that he just woke up one day with his pre-teen self in a world that looked exactly like Konoha before the Pein invasion, wouldn't that be the exact way to describe it? Insanity?

…But this…Kakashi knew he wasn't going insane. He knew exactly what was going on, even if he didn't know  _why_  or  _how_.

Because…

Kakashi's hand reached over and hooked a finger under the mask of the shinobi's face, ignoring the noise of protests, and pulled it down. He closed his eyes and sighed. The mask was pulled back up.

The shinobi…the boy – for that was what he was – was seething, struggling against the weight upon him and trying to tear himself from the grip on his arms now that the kunai was lax. " _How_ dare _you_?"

Kakashi could recognize his own face. A face that, with only a handful of exceptions, none being an enemy, had remained concealed from the shinobi world for as long as he could remember.

But most of all, he could recognize those eyes.

The eyes that had looked in the mirror every single day after his father's death, a holy mantra repeating over and over in his head, until the moment he came home and saw a blood-red eye gazing back at him and his reflection shattered before his fist.

_Those who break the rules are scum._ _**But those who abandon their friends are worse than scum.** _

Because no transformation jutsu, no illusion can replicate the mirror to the soul better than the bearer themselves.

The silver-haired boy stopped struggling, deciding not to waste his strength. But that didn't stop his body from relaxing, either. He could still feel the tense muscles underneath. "Who are you?" he hissed.

Kakashi opened his eyes and cocked his head slightly, peering down at the boy languidly.

"Kakashi Hatake—"

The boy's eyes narrowed, and he tensed even more if that was possible.

"—That's your name." Kakashi leaned forward slowly, the boy attempting to inch away.

"But so is mine."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be going on vacation, so there will be no updates for a couple of weeks.
> 
> Please feel free to comment and see you all in the next one!


	4. No Choice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. Those rights go to Masashi Kishimoto.
> 
> Published: 9/18/2017  
> Last Edit: 2/12/2018

 

The air was musty. The smell of dust and old parchment permeated through the small enclosed space. By some lucky chance, the back room of rarely touched scrolls and books was still under renovation, and so a few flickering flames hidden behind glass panes were his only company.

Not long into his examination through the shelves, Minato realized something peculiar. A large handful of the tomes were in bad condition, jagged torn covers and disorderly creases further marring the dilapidated pages. Compared to the newer but limited collections outside of the little room, they looked as if they were salvaged, just barely spared from the many adversities they had faced.

He made a mental note to find and ask the librarian later.

Minato studied one of the desks against the wall, dragging it towards the light and carefully clearing the table of its contents. He set the scroll on top of it, turning it until a few of the smudged characters were in plain view.

The blonde-haired Jonin had not had the chance to do extensive research on the scroll prior to their arrival in the future. In fact, it had only been that morning, before he and his students met up for their regular training routine, that he had even received the scroll, along with its known history.

The Hokage had informed him, no pipe anywhere in reach of his hands, that the scroll was recently discovered by scavengers in an underground ruin. Compared to the handful of treasure that had been found, the indecipherable scroll was low in value, much less one to keep for the sake of sentimentality.

Shinobi from Konoha who had just happened to come across them in their small bid for help, had received the scroll as a token of their gratitude, as well as a free hospitable stay in their quarters.

Unfortunately for Minato, the scavenger family had had a toddler living under the same roof, and thus viewed the scroll as one of far less importance than the older civilians. They were beyond lucky that only water had been spilled on the scroll, and that the document itself had not suffered more than a large blotch on its fragile paper.

It did, however, make it a little more complicated than Minato had been expecting.

The scroll was ancient. Preserved by the intricate markings of one seal, its revelations concealed from the shinobi world by another. The moment Minato had first held it in his hands, the hairs at the back of his neck stood on end. A steady hum of primordial power had thrummed over the scroll's surface, in contrast to the strangely marked, dreary image it created in outsiders' eyes.

The contents of the scroll itself was not affected by the incident, that much was clear (at least before yesterday's events had transpired. Now, the scroll sat unnervingly quiet.). It was one of the two outer seals that was affected. And there lay in the problem.

Rarely was the case where distinct formulas were interwoven with one another, much less ones of such complexity. Minato could follow the characters to a certain extent – which was why he was able to identify that there was, not one, but  _two_ seals adorning the outer layer of the scroll – but it was not a formula he recognized from past encounters.

Many seals in his time were relatively easy to dissect – merely a read through and prodding of chakra were sometimes enough for Minato to mentally formulate the counter-measures or bypass the seal altogether. This time, he did not have that luxury.

For one, the seal was painted, rather than weaved through the use of chakra. Minato has long since mastered the painstaking art of using ink to create his seals, allowing him to move on to the more battle-ready methods of fuinjutsu through the use of chakra. It had one drawback, however: it made the seal more vulnerable to be manipulated.

Ink seals, on the other hand, were sturdier, and its effects unable to be changed in any way unless fully countered. A few of the characters had blurred beyond comprehension, but there were no changes to the effects of the seal itself. As long as the seal was not tampered with during its application, the seal would hold for however long it was required. All Minato needed to do was analyze the pattern and fill in the missing piece.

But it wasn't that easy.

Each character carried an absolute significance to the formula, and if Minato pumped his chakra into the seal with only a single character wrong, there would be no second chance.

The ink blotch was almost a dark grey, diluted from weeks of exposure to the air. If Minato made a mistake, if he placed ink on the paper, only to find out he was wrong, the combined blotch of the past character and the newly applied character would result in a blemish that would be indistinguishable in comparison to a third attempt. The seal would not recognize the character, and that would be it.

And so, as two of his clones searched through the shelves, looking among the severely limited texts about the philosophies of Time-Travel, as well as a single mention of the scroll among the texts regarding the ruins, Minato took the time to examine every inch of the complex seals.

Any other time, Minato would have marveled at the ingenuity of these designs. But in every second that passed, the length of their disappearance in the past would continue to tick.

And if there was a  _time limit_ , or any significant aspect to its usage, hidden within the contents of the scroll, he couldn't afford to waste any more time than was absolutely necessary.

 

* * *

 

Minato was scribbling on a piece of paper, mapping out one of the several versions of the completed duo-seal, when his students came.

The desk was in disarray, papers placed haphazardly all over the surface, and with a few writing instruments no doubt buried among the mounds. The utensil in his hand, itself, was the fourth. Several books lay open near his feet, his clones long since dispersed after bearing no more fruit in their search.

He heard footsteps. Rushed. Attempting to be silent.

Minato quickly and carefully set aside the papers, and in a calculated burst of chakra, leaped upwards and attached himself to the ceiling by the door in a crouch. His tri-pronged kunai gleamed in the dim yellow light.

The door burst open and two figures rushed into the room. They were halfway to Minato's desk when they stopped, and by then, he had gotten enough time to recognize the backs of their heads, one with their wig and one without, as well as their clothing, dirty and…torn.

Eyes widening in alarm, he immediately detached himself from the ceiling and closed the door. Quietly, but not so quiet that his students couldn't hear. They jerked around, and Minato's eyes caught the dried blood on Obito's leg and the thin claw marks slashing through his clothing.

" _Are you okay?_ " Because even though they were here and alive in front of him, it did not change the fact that they had been  _attacked_  – the wild eyes and appearance were proof of that. He immediately rushed forward and peeled away the fabric covering Obito's wound. It was a deep rosy pink that was starting to tear from the unfinished healing it had done, with blood beginning to accumulate once again. "Rin, it's close to the femoral artery. Can you heal the rest of it?"

"Sensei - "

Minato grabbed the chair he had been previously sitting on and pulled it towards Obito, the wood protesting with the treatment against the floor, and ignoring the way his student was trying to get his attention. He gently yet firmly pushed Obito down, and Rin knelt by his leg, green chakra unsteadily flickering to life before stabilizing.

" _Sensei -_  "

"It's okay, Obito, just leave it to her." Minato frowned, hands coming up empty after he rummaged through his pouch for gauze. "Rin, do you have - ?"

" _Kakashi's unconscious!"_

Obito's words rang through the silence. The glowing light from Rin's hands didn't fade, but her brow furrowed further, and not just from concentration.

"Ka…Kakashi?"

"It—It's not our Kakashi." Any hope that was building in his chest deflated at Rin's quiet admittance. But Obito's words came back to him again and made his heart speed up for an entirely different reason.

"Wait. This time-line's Kakashi is unconscious?" What was that supposed to mean? "How? Since when?"

"They said that...their Kakashi hasn't woken up since yesterday. And they've tried everything to-to see what's wrong, but they haven't found anything."

Minato could barely hear past the pounding of his heart, his mind trying to push him in a direction he couldn't quite grasp. He drew back with a slow breath.

"Obito, Rin, tell me everything."

They did, immediately diving into a summarization of their experiences following the moment he let them out of his sight (which was remarkably full of activity in that short amount of time). He listened as they took turns glancing over their personal advents until they reached the moment where they had presumably gotten their injuries – when they were confronted by Ino and the Inuzukas, Kiba and Akamaru.

At some point in their tale, Rin finished healing all of Obito's wounds and Obito tried to stand up, with success. They diverted from their story long enough for Obito to admit that he wanted to get to Minato first and tell what they heard and saw before allowing Rin to heal the entire wound.

They continued soon afterwards, once bringing up the small bit of the future Minato knew better than to not expect them to see.

(" _YOU BECAME HOKAGE?!_ "

He cringed. "Obito, not so loud..."

A beat of silence. "Wait...you  _knew_?  _And you didn't TELL US?_ ")

(In retrospect, he was just glad they were too stunned by the prospect to ask about his reaction.)

(He didn't want to admit he was having trouble recalling it himself.)

But it didn't matter. It wasn't important, and that lack of significance was even more blatant as the most recent events began to be told.

"It's like we didn't exist!" Obito threw his hands up in the air, as if he were offended, but he shouldn't possibly be, if it meant that it saved them from getting captured. "I even yelled at them. They didn't hear a thing!"

"And they couldn't see you either," Minato murmured. He looked at Rin. "You said it was right after they dispelled your clones, right?"

Rin nodded slowly, recounting the memory in her head. "When I was under the control of Ino," absentmindedly, she rubbed her arms, goosebumps dotting underneath her skin, "I couldn't do anything to get out of it. But then it was like she was torn away from me and I was slammed back into my body. The only thing I heard before that was Obito yelling at me to run away."

"I said it to her clone," Obito clarified. He looked up at Minato-sensei. "What's up with them, anyway? Why did it only happen  _after_ our clones disappeared?"

"Did you find anything strange about them?" Minato inquired.

"No," Obito said petulantly after a moment of thinking. "They felt normal when we created them, and it felt the same after they dispelled."

"What about you, Rin?"

She shook her head. "No, sensei."

Obito rubbed his head, and it matted unevenly from the dried sweat. "Jeez, first time travel and now this? Next thing you know, we'll be able to walk through people."

Walk through people. If Obito and Rin weren't able to be seen, nor were they able to be heard..."You haven't tried?"

"What?" Obito stared at him, horror-struck. "Minato-sensei, it's  _going through people_ ," he emphasized, as if Minato had missed that fact. "Like, like some creepy horror story. Who would  _want_ to try that?"

A small smile twitched the corners of Rin's lips. "To be honest, Obito, we thought it would be you."

"Rin!"

Minato smiled too, but his mind was still whirring. "Have you tried talking to others? Civilians, perhaps?"

Rin shook her head. "We went straight here after they left. They seemed really worried and…" she trailed off.

He connected the dots. "They were the ones who said Kakashi was unconscious."

"Those weren't their exact words," Rin said, minutely quieter. "The pink-haired lady said he 'wouldn't wake up'. But they didn't ask any more questions, so we couldn't find out anything else."

Minato mulled over this, "Thank you, Rin."

"Sensei!" Obito piped up, eyes suddenly wide. "They called him 'Sensei'!"

Minato paused. "Sensei...who...?" Then it registered. "Kakashi?"

"Yeah, they called him - all three of them - they called him, Kakashi-sensei!"

It was a shock, as much as it was a relief, to know that Kakashi was still alive even after what looked to be many years. And it undoubtedly worried Minato that his student – his future self, that is – was being ailed by something unknown. But this? He was having a bit of trouble pinning down one of the emotions swelling in his chest.

Minato always knew the good qualities that was in his student, having met him and his father before Sakumo's death. He had been patient and kind, dry-witted and very intelligent. Skilled beyond imagination. But after the traumatizing event when he was 6, those qualities that made him less like a mere weapon had become buried under the resentment and ideals that Kakashi had prioritized above all others.

And yet, from what this new tidbit of information was telling him, it seemed Kakashi had finally risen from those dark times. He had finally decided to reach out and have people take care of him instead of him only taking care of himself, even if it meant having to care for his own students first.

It gave him no small amount of joy and relief. But it also made him curious.

Kakashi was an inverted person, rarely letting people into his inner circle. What had made him willingly take on students of his own?

And just how far into the future were they, if shinobi more than 5 years older than his own students were calling him 'Kakashi-sensei'?

Minato shook his head mentally. He was getting ahead of himself.

"It doesn't matter," he said out loud. Rin and Obito stopped their animated debate of how Kakashi would be as a sensei to listen intently to his words. "What we need to know is why this Kakashi's not waking up." Barring what had happened to his students, this was the closest lead they may have to what had happened to his third student. If his student wasn't anywhere in Konoha, perhaps the best option was to actually find his other self and see if anything strange has happened.

Obito's mouth opened a little as he understood. "Are you thinking there's a connection, sensei?"

"I'm thinking there may be a possibility," Minato corrected. "And if it will somehow give us a key to where our Kakashi is, then we'll take all the possibilities we can get." He straightened from leaning back against the bookshelf. "In case they may be out there, I'll teleport you both back to the hotel, away from prying eyes. They shouldn't be able to get past the seals without me knowing."

The both of them knew better than to protest against a direct order from Minato. "Even though we can't be seen, Sensei?"

"We don't know if the both of your conditions are only temporary."

Rin's eyes widened. "You can still be seen, Minato-sensei?"

"I don't know." He hasn't taken the time to communicate with anyone today. Not even the librarian. "But it's better to be safe than sorry, and right now, safe means that the both of you have a smaller risk in getting captured. From what you've told me, they don't know that I exist, yet."

Minato moved to the table and began to gather his stuff. The library books were going to stay, as he no longer needed them. But it was best for him to leave as little of his presence here as possible, just in case there was slim chance they might find him out. After putting the papers into a slim pile and tucking the brushes into their secure pockets, he turned to his students and held the load out to them. Since he was the closest, Obito took it first. Minato then grabbed the scroll and gave it to Rin, who held it carefully.

"Keep them safe for me," Minato said. He then placed a hand on each of his student's shoulders, sought out the marker he placed at their hotel, and  _jumped_.

The last of the withering flames flickered out, leaving the small room in darkness.

 

* * *

 

There were no ANBU around. There usually wasn't, unless there was a high-profile shinobi being treated at the Hospital.

But even so, Minato has never seen a glimpse of any of the ANBU while they were in the future. Which either meant they were called away or the peace between the villages was stable enough to not have any use for the espionage force. Minato was willing to bet the latter.

Upon dropping his students off at the hotel, he had set off to find the Hospital.

Aware of the situation Obito and Rin had experienced, he was cautious in approaching the general population, but he needed to see if their condition applied to him as well. He had remained as non-descript as possible, before approaching a lone shopkeeper in an open store. Minato waited until the shopkeeper rounded the corner of the store he was in, away from view of the street, and called out.

There was no answer. The civilian continued looking around and rearranging what was needed. It couldn't have been a simple lack of hearing that was involved - Minato had observed his interactions with customers. There was nothing wrong with the functions of his ears, and there was no way the man could not see him when he was directly in his line of sight.

Minato shifted over to the shelf and, carefully watching for any reaction, placed a hand on a toy rabbit just as the shopkeeper's eyes were about to pass over. The man gave no indication that there was any change that had happened to the toy. Minato frowned and grabbed ahold of the toy, his hand wrapping easily around the small fabricated body, and was about to lift it up when a choked sound came from the shopkeeper's direction.

The man was staring. A second later, he rubbed his eyes, moving his head to the side and then back, as if he were trying to make sure that the toy wouldn't just disappear. Or appear, in what this case seemed to be. Minato frowned contemplatively and set the toy back down, releasing his hold on it just as the man repeated his movements one more time.

Minato watched attentively as the civilian jerked back with horrified and disbelieving eyes, away from the toy sitting innocently at its spot. Interesting. It had only been a simple hunch, brought on by the question of how Obito and Rin's given clothes, which were not from the past, had disappeared along with them. But it seems it was proven correct. Whatever had allowed them to disappear from other people's senses, it extended to even the clothes they wore and the objects they grabbed. It was just a matter of firm, largely direct contact.

But if that were the case...

Minato stared at his hand, before blue narrowed eyes lifted to the man before him. He took a step forward and slowly extended his arm, until his fingers began to brush the top of the shopkeeper's shoulder.

He didn't account for the man to suddenly straighten without warning.

Or for the skin past his wrist to disappear into the man's body.

Minato's eyes widened comically, and he immediately jerked out his arm. To his uncertain relief, his perfectly fine hand clenched and unclenched at his will.

Movement caught his eyes, and he immediately looked up to see the shopkeeper shudder violently, hand coming up to grasp the area Minato's hand had been. The man swerved his head from side to side in undisguised fear, glancing quickly at the still innocent toy one last time before hurriedly shuffling away. Combined with the constantly throwing back glances, it was the exact behavior one would expect from being haunted by a ghost.

Though perhaps that was a correct description for the occasion. If one disregarded the fact that the shopkeeper had clearly felt  _something_  when Minato's hand passed through him, they were essentially ghosts to both shinobi and civilians alike.

Which, despite being put into words,  _still didn't make sense._

The scroll was involved, that was for sure. And perhaps this mishap was a result of the damage inflicted on it - their bodies becoming incorporeal, unseen versions of themselves. But how did it explain yesterday, how they were fully able to communicate with everyone following their arrival in the future? And the fact that this mechanism only became active once Obito and Rin lost their shadow clones?

Minato's hands drew up into a sign, and a clone appeared before him in a puff of smoke, noting the familiar drain and his chakra swirling to life, connected by an invisible thread to the entity of chakra before him. He directed a short physical examination, to which the clone answered in negative, before telling it to remain. After making sure the shopkeeper near the front was angled away from his position, Minato quickly exited the shop before turning and striding over to the second entrance, where the owner stood.

The shopkeeper saw him approach and greeted him with a wobbly smile. His skin was almost white and his eyes were shifty.

Minato had not doubted his students' words, but it was another thing to have it all confirmed to him so clearly.

Noticing that the owner was about to close up shop and feeling guilty, he decided to pretend he was browsing, purposefully keeping up idle chatter with the man to subtly bring him back to the area they were in previously. He exhaled quietly in relief when, as moments passed by with nothing strange happening, the tension in the shopkeeper began to ease. Finally, after pretending he was late and asking for the location of the Hospital, Minato walked off with a  _thank you_ , making sure no one was looking before ducking into an alley and dispelling his clone, feeling the barely alleviated chakra return to him and cause his inner reserves to settle.

This...would probably making things easier than he thought. He now had an almost complete ability to avoid detection, as long as he avoided having contact with anyone. He wouldn't have to worry about his disguise being found out or being seen, nor would he have to worry as hard for his students once they inevitably went outside.

He would question it further later, but right now, he needed to get as much information as possible. And the sooner he arrived at the Hospital and find where the shinobi have gathered with the Kakashi of the future, the sooner they may be able to find out what happened to their Kakashi.

What a strange day it was, for him to draw close to breaking one of the most important self-made rules of traveling forward in time: do not seek knowledge of the future.

And if his gut was correct, he may just have to schedule an appointment with Inoichi when they get back - and sooner than he thought.

After minutes of walking and a series of corners, he came across a large white building with blue rooftops, looking as if time had not changed it in the least, as long as one did not consider its different surroundings. If the appearance was not proof enough, the insignia above the entrance was. Several shinobi were standing just outside the doors, talking, so Minato's eyes drifted upwards.

There were a few open windows on the second floor. Minato leaped upwards and smoothly cleared the windowsill of a room he remembered was supposed to sit nearest to the stairs. To his luck, he was greeted to empty silence. Four beds sat against the pearly walls, but only one had its bedsheets thrown and wrinkled. The door was open.

It was eerily silent as he exited the room and began walking down the hallway to the opposite side, inspecting the rooms as he did. The majority of the doors on the second floor were open, discovered to be empty. The ones that weren't, a quick sensory technique with his limited sensory skills were enough to show the same results.

Just as he reached the stairs, he heard the hurrying of footsteps coming up from the ground level. Minato stepped to the side, and watched as a young-looking Nara with a tight frown on his face went up the steps, heading for the third floor. Minato waited for a moment, weighed his options briefly, and followed. The Nara continued walking in what Minato knew was unlike the lazy stride every Nara was known for - on regular days, that is. When their duty would call, they could look every bit as formidable as their intelligence suggests.

Eventually, the Nara turned a corner into an area with a large white dog and an Inuzuka, who was leaning back against the backdrop of an open window. The ninken lifted its head the moment the Nara came into view, barking loudly. The Inuzuka looked up too, uncrossing his arms and positioning his body towards them. Minato could see scorch marks on his clothes, and his eyes narrowed. This was Kiba.

"Hey, Shikamaru!"

Shikamaru nodded in acknowledgement. "Why aren't you inside?" he jerked his head towards the door of the room directly across Kiba.

"Told me to wait for you," he grumbled. "In case you didn't know what room it was."

Shikamaru muttered something underneath his breath that made Minato raise his eyebrow in amusement. It seems that some of the clan members of the Inuzuka clan were just as rowdy as they were in the future. Shikamaru reached for the handle of the door.

"The Fifth Hokage is in there," Kiba announced suddenly. "They found her just before she left the village. She's checking on Kakashi-sensei, right now."

Minato's brows drew down. The Fifth Hokage...Tsunade, Jiraiya-sensei's teammate, the one who apparently succeeded him after...whatever happened to Minato. Jiraiya had muttered once about how she never seemed to age because of her jutsu, among other things - Minato adamantly refused to think further than that - but he didn't hear that it extended her lifespan, as well. Quite the opposite, actually.

Then that would mean...they weren't too far into the future as they might have thought. Jiraiya was in his mid-thirties in their time period. If Tsunade was around the same age as he, and if in this time period she already had a successor while still being well enough to do a check-up on a patient, then they had to be around 30 or so years into the future - at most.

Which meant that the Kakashi that lay past this door would be older than Minato himself. The thought swirled in his mind uncomfortably.

Shikamaru turned around, noticing that Kiba was starting to leave. "You're not coming inside, Kiba?"

He grunted, shrugging a shoulder. "I'm not much use anyway, aren't I?"

But before he could even take another step, Shikamaru said, "Well, aren't you gonna tell us where you got those burn marks? Or was it just another training accident?"

Kiba paused and slowly turned back around, a determinedly un-miffed look on his face. "...Right."

Shikamaru cocked an eyebrow at him before he shook his head exasperatedly, and entered the room. Three figures looked up at their entrance, while the fourth remained bent over the figure nestled under the covers of the bed by the window.

Minato instantly took note of the females with varying hair colors. Long blonde hair, appearance matching the description given by his students - Ino. Pupil-less milky eyes curtained by long raven hair - a Hyuuga. The "pink-haired lady" that had delivered the news about Future Kakashi. And the fourth figure, blonde hair tied back by two limp pony-tails, sandaled-heels adorning pale feet, an unfamiliar green haori blaring the words "Gamble!" on the back - Tsunade.

Minato had met his sensei's former teammate several times in the past, when his own team ventured out on missions outside of the village. It was always brief. Mostly for Jiraiya-sensei's sake, because they quickly found out Tsunade was quite temperamental and Jiraiya just so happened to poke at all the wrong buttons.

(The first time they witnessed a moment where Jiraiya was particularly rambunctious, they were scarred for life.

They learned to stay at least a few meters away every time they happened to cross paths with her from then on.)

The blonde-haired Jonin sensed Kiba come too close behind him, almost trapping Minato between him and the Nara, and so he immediately shuffled to the side. The two males moved closer to the bedside, with Minato following behind cautiously.

"Looks like the whole crew is gathered," Shikamaru commented.

"Only the best," Ino replied. Her attention, however, was focused on the green glow emanating from Tsunade's hands.

Shikamaru moved on to the next person with an ease that showed how familiar he was with the blonde's words. "Hinata, I didn't expect they would call you here, too."

The Hyuuga smiled at him, a gentle softness to her face that remained even when her expression sharpened subtly. "Sakura-chan asked if I could look for any abnormalities in his chakra pathways."

They finally reached the bedside of the patient, and Minato had to move towards the slightly open window in order to have a good view, while being safe from any involuntary contact. Ocean-blue eyes followed the traces of the body underneath the blanket, until it reached the tuff of silver hair almost blending into the pillow. As was customary, unless in the case of dire treatments, the mask was still in place, navy blue with the face underneath ever a mystery.

Even after all those years of definite maturing, it seemed that Kakashi hadn't really changed a bit.

Minato's eyes caught another glimmer of silver, except it was grayer and dulled with time. A scar that was barely noticeable under the calm green light on his temples, running directly over Kakashi's eyelid and disappearing underneath the mask. Minato's eyes tightened in concern. The old scar looked like the result of a deep wound. Did he go through a whole war with only one eye to use?

"And was there anything?"

"Kakashi-sensei's chakra paths looked more restless than usual-"

"Which is expected since he's asleep," the pink-haired girl added.

"-But I'm concerned about the other chakra signature that's following the same paths as his own."

Shikamaru's eyes narrowed. "You don't recognize the chakra, Hinata?"

She shook her head faintly. "No, not at all. But..." Her expression was confused. "It looked yellow. Gold."

Shikamaru and Kiba, who was a bit further back, widened their eyes. "But - that's Naruto's!" Kiba blurted. Minato blinked. Someone named their child after ramen? Despite that, he mentally filed the name away just in case.

"Naruto never had any contact with Kakashi-sensei for several days now," the pink-haired girl said. "And Kakashi-sensei has never shown anything wrong with him until yesterday."

"Yesterday, Sakura?" Shikamaru caught on.

Sakura nodded. "Shizune said he looked...off ever since he left to go home last night." Her eyes slid over to Kakashi. "When he didn't come to the office at the time he usually does, Shizune sent someone to find him. They thought he was sleeping, but when they tried to wake him up, they couldn't."

Shikamaru absorbed the info, and sighed. "Tsk...What a pain."

"You know, something weird happened to us, too," Kiba butted in. His ninken, Akamaru, barked in agreement.

Sakura eyed him. "Is that why you look like you played with the campfire again?"

"Shut up," Kiba said with no real heat behind it. "It was a Genin. He knew how to do the Fireball Jutsu."

"The Fireball Jutsu?" There was a surprised tone lacing Sakura and Shikamaru's voices. The technique has been passed down for generations in the Uchiha clan, so it was understandable how it would look like to them when a non-Uchiha Genin was able to use it. But then Sakura continued, "Kakashi-sensei has been too busy to teach any students, and Sasuke...it's unlikely."

Minato's eyes narrowed in confusion. So Kakashi knew the jutsu? Minato could understand if he managed to figure out how to use the technique, especially when he had Obito as a teammate, but even if this Sasuke was an Uchiha, then that would mean the prejudices thrown between the rest of Konoha and the Uchiha clan were still very much active. Even to the point that people would doubt their willingness to share their clan's technique with an outsider.

Minato had half-expected them, Ino and Kiba, to speak about the earlier events of the day, but he didn't account for it being the main reason why they started spilling information that Minato was better off not knowing.

"I'm sure we would have noticed if a Genin was practicing the Fireball Jutsu -  _especially_  with how exceptional he was in using it," Ino decided to choose this time to add. "I'm not kidding. I doubt it's something he could learn by himself in just a few months during the war."

"Sasuke was good at the jutsu when he graduated from the Academy," Sakura pointed out. "He's been learning it since he was a little kid. The boy you met may not be an Uchiha, but he could've been trying to learn it over the years."

Here, Ino hesitated, and for some reason, a trickle of unease curled up against Minato's spine.

"That's the thing...I think..." Ino looked at Kiba. "You saw, too, right? Under that wig?"

"What?" Sakura said.

"When I came across the two Genin, one is the boy we were talking about and another was his girlfriend, I was able to see what was underneath those goggles of his."

They all leaned in, the strange lilt to her tone peaking their interest.

"His face, you know? It kind of looked like...he looked a bit like..." Her eyes flickered to the unconscious Kakashi briefly before she made eye contact with each of the other shinobi, continuing in a whisper. "...Obito."

" _What!?_ "

The absolute incredulity in their voices were enough to give Minato pause.

"And not only that, he even _said_  his name was Obito."

"But he's..." Sakura's eyes were wide. "That can't be right. That's not possible...Unless it's Edo-Tensei?"

Impure World Reincarnation? The name drifted around his mind until it clicked, a long-forgotten memory coming to the surface. It was one of the jutsu the Second Hokage had created, except this particular technique was soon deemed forbidden because of its power to defy the laws of nature. But from the way these young shinobi were speaking, they sounded as if they were speaking from personal experience with the jutsu. That couldn't have been possible. If it weren't for Minato's interest in the Second Hokage and the original Thunder God Technique, he wouldn't have known it existed.

But somehow, these shinobi knew. And they seemed to think that Obito was a direct result of it.

...

Ocean eyes flew open, his body jolting as if he were struck by thunder.

 _Impure World_   _Reincarnation._

Then that would mean that...Obito...

Obito was already dead?

Ino's eyes were narrowed, and she tilted her head. "Trust me, I was up front and center. There's no way he could be. And even then, his girlfriend said they were 10 years old, and when I tried to show that I thought they were from Konoha, they didn't correct me. They just looked spooked. And I've also looked at the Academy records - there hasn't been a single student in years who've had an early graduation. They've all graduated at the age of 12, like standard. Why would anyone set themselves up like that so badly?"

"During the Third Shinobi World War, Asuma-sensei's class graduated at 9 years old," Shikamaru pointed out. "I heard Kakashi-sensei graduated way earlier than them, but he was originally in their class before he did. And if Obito was in the same team as Kakashi-sensei...he should've been in that same class."

"The girl, too, if both of them are the same age," Sakura said. Her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "But it still doesn't make sense. The Obito we knew was definitely older than 10. I didn't know it was possible to completely reincarnate someone to how they were years before they died. From what I've seen, it's always required a life in exchange."

There was a lull of silence at that, and Minato vaguely wondered what was going on through their minds to cause such skeptic expressions to come across their faces.

"You're forgetting one important thing," a new voice suddenly broke in.

Tsunade opened her eyes, the green glow of her chakra fading from her hands. She put a hand on her hip, staring down at Kakashi contemplatively before looking at the other shinobi. "Why would it be that on the same day you see these two Genin, Kakashi began acting strange?"

"Could just be a coincidence," Kiba offered. "They could've been here for a long time already before we met them. There's a lot of Genin in Konoha."

"Not these Genin." Her posture was relaxed, but her voice was firm and unyielding, sounding every bit of the Hokage she once was. Which, considering the current progress of the sixth head on the mountain, was not too long ago. "There's something else going on here, and those two children are a part of it."

"What makes you say that, Lady Tsunade?" Shikamaru asked, a sharp gleam in his eyes.

Tsunade walked to the foot of Kakashi's bed, nearer to them, and joined them as they collectively stared at the motionless figure. "Hinata was right that there is another chakra mingling with his own. I was able to test it and see if it had malicious intent. It doesn't, but it won't respond to me either. And it's weak. I doubt that Kakashi would even be aware of it when he wakes up."

"So he's going to be okay?" Sakura asked, and Minato was focused enough by now to identify the emotion in her eyes as deep-set worry.

"Your evaluation is the same as mine, Sakura," Tsunade sighed. "But there's another thing. His chakra reserves seem to have grown larger since the last time I've checked it. Are you sure he hasn't been training much for the past month?"

"He's not going to do that when he has the village to worry about," Sakura answered. "He hardly leaves the office nowadays, except for when he knows there's a meeting with the council."

"Then 'escape', is more like it." Tsunade sounded half-piteous and half-exasperated.

"Lady Tsunade, the Genin," Shikamaru prompted.

"Ah. I've only met Kakashi's sensei, Minato, a few times after he had took on his own Genin team. But I was able to hear stories from Jiraiya. A prodigy, an Uchiha, and a medic-nin."

"A medic-nin?" Sakura repeated.

"The Uchiha's best friend, Rin Nohara."

Ino inhaled sharply and Kiba's eyebrows shot up. The other shinobi collectively turned to them. "The girl," Ino murmured, "She said her name was Rin."

"What a pain," Shikamaru eventually sighed after a short moment of silence. He listed, "So we got two of Kakashi-sensei's former teammates, who turns out to have been revived by someone we don't know, in the bodies of their Genin selves. And not only that, Kakashi-sensei has been unconscious since yesterday, with a foreign chakra moving through his system, even though he had been in his office all-day yesterday."

"And now, it's time for desperate measures." Tsunade nodded to Ino, who took the hint and took the older woman's former spot by Kakashi's head. "Ino will be going inside his mindscape, find his subconscious, and try to figure out the problem."

They watched as Ino carefully placed both hands on the mop of silver hair and closed her eyes in concentration. When she ceased to move any longer, Tsunade continued in a softer volume, "If all goes well, by the time she comes back to her body, Kakashi will wake up."

And just like that, at the prospect of Kakashi awakening with none of his original team around, at the strange way they were talking about himself and Rin, the mentions of Team 7 all collected into one horrifying conclusion. Minato's breath shuttered, and the shadows of the white walls seemed to darken, the room suddenly becoming too small for him to breathe.

Rin and Obito were dead.

Obito had lived long enough to get acquainted with these shinobi, but he was no longer among the living.

Rin was practically an unknown to everyone, despite her large promise in medical-ninjutsu. Tsunade was a medic-nin herself; he had no doubts that she would keep track of the ongoings in the Konoha Hospital, yet the way she talked about Rin suggested she had never met his student in the years to come.

Minato had no idea what had happened to his future self, but he knew for sure that he wouldn't have just abandoned Konoha without good reason, up and left even though he had so many reasons to stay.

The only other option…was that he, too, was dead. Even if he was not yet the Fourth Hokage, he knew that he would give his life for the village. And the fact that only one of his students had disappeared and has somehow affected his future self while the rest of his team remained...it wasn't looking good for Minato's hope that  _somehow,_ he was alive to watch over Kakashi, to squeeze into the void that was left by his father and  _stay_.

He had known the risks for going deep into uncharted territories, and now he was experiencing the full force of his actions.

Sakura stepped forward suddenly.

Ino's expression had tightened in confusion. "Hinata, can you use your Byakugan and see if anything's changing?" Sakura asked quietly.

Hinata gave a small nod without looking. Immediately, her milky eyes narrowed and veins popped up around the skin of her eyes. "Kakashi-sensei's chakra is stabilizing," she informed after a few seconds. "Ino is - " Abruptly, she cut off, her distant eyes refocusing and widening all at the same time, flickering to the window and then back.

An unspoken tension rippled over the room. Kakashi's form shifted slightly.

"... _On_ _m_ _y left._ " It was a whisper so quiet, Minato could barely hear it. A split-second after, his view of Hinata was blocked by Shikamaru, hands rammed into a sign and his shadow bursting into life.

Pitch black tendrils  _clawed_ at Minato's position at a speed that he barely managed to dodge, sending him flying straight into the open air.

" _I missed_."

"They went through the window!"

Minato knew that if he stayed any longer under the scrutiny of the Byakugan, his chakra signature would be memorized. His mind reached out to the beacon of one of his seals, and  _pulled_. A still moment of oblivion, and then he was dropping onto the center of their hotel room, his students scrambling to their feet at the table nearby.

"M-Minato-sensei!"

His hand was trembling, he realized. His breath was hitching at intervals.

He let it go in a whoosh, closing his eyes, reminding himself of just why he had decided to endanger his anonymity. There was no need to dwell on the unnecessary information ( _he was dead, his students were_ dead) because Minato, based on what it sounded, just might have a feeling of what had happened to his third ( _only living)_  student.

It was a reach. It was something that was near impossible to conclude without the evidence being laid out, and even then it was baffling. But it was strangely logical, in an otherworldly sort of way.

Obito and Rin do not need to know of their fates. Minato will make sure it won't happen. Their deaths would loom over their heads until all that was left to think about was  _how,_ and they couldn't afford that. His students didn't need that burden.

He waved away his students' questions and moved with slightly heavy steps over to the side to begin modifying the seals.

(But even as he resigned himself to that thought...his heart was cracking.

And there was no telling what would happen when it breaks completely.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of Team 7 has finally met Kakashi, but it didn't go the way one would expect. Don't worry, their time will come.  
> Also, now more of their condition has been revealed. Cookies to those who successfully theorize how it all connects, and/or find the missing pieces to the puzzle.  
> -  
> For those who ever feel down and just need to say the words left unsaid, I suggest typing "The Thoughts Room" on the search bar. It's on the website called thequietplaceproject. The song that plays there, really does help. So if listening suits you better, search up the song, put it on replay, lay your head down, and close your eyes.


End file.
